De-cluttering

Nature is not with anybody. Neither is it against anyone. It’s for us to decide whether we are with it or against it. The onus is on us. Since we are merely its part, it suits our purpose if we go with it. Going against it means going against ourselves. But that is what we have been doing presently, especially since the industrial revolution. Our brains turned the crowns of our ownership of the planet as the sole proprietor species. The weakening of the overall system manifests primarily in the weakening of its constituent parts.

In a single-species environment, the rest of all subservient species get threatened with extinction, just like Corona virus imperils our cells. The exponentially growing species may think that it’s moving towards the crowning glory in terms of development, it’s in fact moving towards a pointed summit where maintaining a perch is impossible. So why move so laboriously towards a little point, only to topple down and start all over again after the crisis. Why not maintain a less ambitious broad high point, i.e., a plateau. The rise will be full of pause and the perch of pinnacle point will be safer and broader. Why do we aim for pointed summit which is unsustainable? Why can’t we raise the bar a bit less seriously and move to another plateau only at a higher elevation. I would say it finely graded growth. It doesn’t collapse rapidly.

Corona is now the most dreaded word. Corona positive is the most fearsome status. It’s stalking the entire humanity. The enemy is invisible and quite wisely we have locked ourselves in the safety of our houses. Meanwhile, the high points of our economic and financial hills fall down.

It’ll be too shortsighted if we just consider Corona as a malady in abstract. Corona isn’t something that has somehow surfaced randomly. It’s merely a symptom of the greater malady with the ecosystem, something to do with the entire earth. It’s just an indication that there are far bigger problems than what we may envision just looking at Corona.

Suppose there is a body having severely compromised immunity. Naturally, things are supposed to collapse. But there will be a trigger somewhere in some part, in some organ, to let the manifestation start. Corona is just one of the triggers that indicate the grievously harmed immunity of mother nature on the planet. Beyond the point of whether the Wuhan virus is lab-created by the Chinese regime or jumped out of inhuman gluttony cascading through live animal markets in China, the basic point is that it’s a symptom of an ailing planet. If not Corona, something x, y, z will unleash the same consequences. If not some virus, it will manifest through the virtual virus of human minds to create phobias, fears, greed, humongous egos and envy to catapult destabilizing forces to penalize the errant society.

Open-ended are the options for the effects to manifest in lieu of the cause, our unsustainable practices. The effects can manifest either through man-made mediums such as wars, civil strife, terrorism, natural calamities, or these can simply manifest through the rulebook of nature in their unseen, intangible ways. I am no perpetual doomsayer, but my only point is that with our awareness we should have known better. We could have done better. It’s not simply enough to go after inventions and discoveries. An equal amount of our energy and resources to estimate the consequences of our actions could have turned our practices more or less sustainable.

In the face of this pandemic, where are the earth-shattering issues like Brexit, trade wars, geostrategic brainstorms in top government offices to control regions, military pursuits, tensions on borders, etc.? If we can survive without them as we do during the lockdown, we can do the same even post-endemic. As we sit in silence after many decades, let’s just cast a look at the mountain loads of unnecessary things that we have crammed in our minds, houses and bazaars. Let’s start de-cluttering.   

Jumping off the tightrope

You become your least version, when you enslave your emotions and feelings  to your mind and take logical steps to be a mechanical achiever. You also become equal to your least version when your emotions enslave your mind, leaving you in the fiery whirlpools of abnormal sensitivities. You become your best version when your thoughts as well as feelings are master and slave of each other at the same time. Mind playing the master when emotions falter. The emotions playing master when mind burns out. Balance buddies, balance! It's like walking the tightrope with the pole held expertly. The two ends of the same entity, the very same pole, thoughts and emotions, counterbalance the fluctuations. You need them because you have chosen to walk on the tightrope, on the thin linear dimension drawn taut and straight by the tension forces of ego. In this dimension, the best version is an unfaltering walk with the pole held almost horizontal with the opposite ends of thoughts and feelings straight, at the same level. That is rarely possible. Only the realised souls who somehow decide to walk the tightrope, may be to guide humanity ahead, are able to manage this. There is still another option. You can decide to jump off the tightrope, onto the broader plane, onto smooth motherly land, where walking isn't a torture, where fears of falling fall away just because the thin course defined by the ego tension drops off. It doesn't mean that you will lose your thoughts and emotions. They will be there, just that these won't be mere survival tools, nibbling into each other's territory to define a limited, curtailed, scared walk that life turns out to be. As you walk on a broader plane, thoughts and feelings don't compete against each other because your fears, defined by ego and self preservation, have vanished. You walk leisurely. Your thoughts and feelings simply stored in their sovereign domains. These are no longer emergency ammunition to wage a battle of survival. They become mere faculties. You can use them at will, or not at all. They lose their grip on your consciousness. You feel free. You float. From a sweating, struggling walk on a tightrope, to a leisurely walk on a broader plane, and still ahead to a free floating flight in multiple dimensions. These are the options all of us have. Take yours!

Be a creator!

Life is supposed to be a big, fat, intriguing and interesting book. Literally a cascading cocktail. More the chapters, the better it is! Creation is ever eager to expand from the tiny edge, the little point, of your existence. Facilitate it. At this point, you exist at the interface of matter and consciousness. It's a far more dynamic state of wonderful transformations in comparison to either pure matter or pure consciousness. There is a heaving pull. A pulsating throbbing born of love--hate relationship between matter and consciousness. These are the teasing pulls from opposite direction. A tantalising see-saw churning, giving rise to myriads of forms, shapes, thoughts and emotions. Of course these are temporarily built, like you have waves in the sea. This is what we say the manifestation of the tiny crests and troughs in the cosmic sea.
So be a creator. You have the option. In the fleeting fluidity, you write mundane and not so mundane tales. Of course, these are like lines drawn in the air or on water. Almost inconsequential! But that's how it's supposed to be. The inescapable urge to stamp a momentary inscription on the slate continually changing designs and patterns. But your choice guides the waves further. Your options glide through the cosmic medium. It might be temporary, but it can't manifest without you! So create well, manifest well!
So if a particular chapter goes stale, wind it up and save ur book from becoming boring. No need to waste energies on a plot that isn't building up. Create fresh characters. Start a new chapter. We are the writers of the book of life. So keep creating life and living out of the infinite pools of cosmic energy. Keep your book interesting!

A poor Hindu with his Choti swotted away

On this Hanuman Jayanti, April 8, when the biggest, brightest and the nearest to earth since 1948 super moon tries to dispel the dark like a night sun, PM Modi has followed the age-old Indian principle of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, meaning this entire earth is one family, by allowing drugs to the countries most in need of it including the US. As a 14% bigger and 30% shinier moon blazes in the night sky, the temperamental US President has praised his friend Modi through a happy tweet, where he also mentions Hanuman Ji and Sanjuvani Booti. Indian Gods are acquiring a global status. Of course, we need a Hanuman and Sanjivani Booti to tame the rampaging Rakshasha of Corona. I think, Modi will not only manage the affairs in India, he will emerge as a world leader post this crisis, when there will be a spate of critical rethinking about our collective priorities and certain ‘wrinkles’ in the fabric to be smoothened and ironed out by hook or crook.

Elsewhere, you have the foot soldiers waging pitched battles against the pandemic. Spirituality seems to have gone into hiding with the pious crowds vanishing from Haridwar streets. Gods appear to have abandoned we poor humans in this needy hour. A burly policeman has decked up as the fearsome Ravana, the demon king. He dons a huge fake mace, an elfish crown and intimidating handlebar moustache. He is thundering and hollering death threats into a microphone if someone dares to step out. ‘Corona is my Yamdoot, he is roaming around to take anyone loitering around unnecessarily!’ he lets out thundering peals of laughter, sufficient to push the hiding devtas still deeper into the Himalayan caves.

How I wish we had followed the Gandhian philosophy of fulfilling ‘need’ not running after ‘greed’. Now we have been taught in a hard way. A super-luxury carper maker is making sanitary masks, again proving the fundamental point that it’s primarily about fulfilling needs, and saving it from falling into the clutches of greed.

People have been torn between duties defining their responsibilities and emotions defining their personal life. In Indore, a young doctor, fighting in the front line against the deadly virus at one of the most affected places in India, has isolated himself from his family. He has to save patients by being with them. But he has to save his family also by not being with them. During his off duty time, he has set up his house in his car. His family and little kid can at least see him from a safe distance in their balconies.

Rigid looking cops have, surprisingly, lots of creativity which is blooming forth in the crisis. Gujarat police comes out with a Corona band. The lead singer is a handsome young sub-inspector. He can go into making a nice actor from the looks of it. They sing beautiful Corona safety songs imitating the composition of popular Bollywood songs. Those romantic songs by celebrity singers and bands hardly hold any appeal as of now. The Corona band is ruling the charts.

We are all into this. It’s a collective punch at our conscience. In Taiwan, people are lining up to donate to help Corona patients in Italy. Full of gratitude and compassion, they have already collected more than 3 million USD. They still remember those testing times 75 years back when Italian priests had built hospitals in Taiwan ravaged after the Second World War. Now they repay that kindness with lots of love in what can be safely called Third World War. Long ago was shown the act of kindness and now it bears fruit. An act of charity seldom goes undercoated. You can say, the seed of kindness, once sown, rarely dies. It has to blossom up. It seems to be almost a natural law.

From all we can see, we have solid reasons to suspect that the Chinese communists have a lot more role to play in this than it appears. I won’t be surprised if it comes out into the open that it’s a lab-engineered virus, a biological weapon. This and what Markaz Jihadis have done in India leaves me quite flummoxed out of my senses. I even get a poetic outpour:

The rabid Chinese communist thugs,

And fundamentalist Islamic bugs,

Will tatter and tear

the majestic carpet to bloodied rugs,

Don't take their bait,

Don't engage them in hate,

At level theirs don't fight,

For it'll be devil's delight,

Love is the sole remedy against the bug,

Go, give them a sweet hug,

Goodness lies in every human heart,

Only on the surface bad doth dart,

May be they will realise,

It's the only harmless weapon

to cut the devil to a decent size,

Civil disobedience against

the Chinese communist thugs,

A loving embrace

to the blinded suicidal Islamic bugs,

Only this will quell the doom,

Or be ready for the devil's boom!

The real Corona has its genesis in a deadly ideology. World peace and harmony in future depend on whether we are collectively able to dismantle that ideology or not. The outside world cannot directly inject a remedy. That would be catastrophic. It can only help within limits. The real antidote is democracy and the people caught in the grip of this ideology have to fight for it themselves for their own and world peace. Sanitize the real ideological bug driving Covid 19. It’s high time to systematically neutralize the real ideological virus driving Covid 19.  

One may wonder, why would nature allow such agents to get such evil ideas and ambitions? It simply is a reflection of our own atrophied selves. The Chinese and the Jihadis are simply the sour fruits of the tree that we have all sown and nurtured. They are the tools for the inevitable consequences to occur. Even the consequences need a medium to operate through. They are simply the part of the same recipe that has gone further sour. Punishment comes in this or that form.

Surely, Mother Nature is angry! As the last of millennial old Baobabs fall in Africa, Mother Nature seems to be withdrawing her blessing hand from us:

Not all is well,

Another Baobab fell,

The millennial old sages,

Mother's blessing arms for ages,

They now bid a sad bye,

Her blessings withdraw with a sigh!

Every adverse situation is counterproductive. You see Himalayas shining in their crowning glory from the farfetched dusty distances down south in the plains. Yamuna has bluish waters after ages. In Delhi! Can you believe it!? All is not lost buddies. A more beautiful world is waiting to welcome you as you come out of this troubling phase!

In Hong Kong, a pair of Pandas is seen naturally mating after 10 years. Meanwhile, the experts and zoo authorities tried their level best to artificially stimulate love between the sulking pair for a decade. It bore no fruit. Now, with the peeping Toms gone, and Mother Nature whispering mischief into their ears, the hearts of these cute giant Pandas bloom in privacy, and the flowers of lovemaking drizzle down. There seems to be some gain, in lieu of all this Corona pain! Well, of course, we have to learn to calculate that gain beyond our strictly human-centric economic models.  

A peculiar situation has built up here in the local agrarian society. Wheat harvesting is staring at the farmers’ worried faces. Already inclement weather has chucked out a major portion of the crop. To make it worse, the migrant Bihari laborers have gone to their native places. The local labor, the low caste Hindus who bear the ignominy of sarcastic undercutting by the high caste born, can pull a few strings now. They are quoting 300 Kg of wheat and an equal amount of chaff fodder for one acre. On top of that, the otherwise aggressive and abusive farmers are forced to use courteous words when talking to them to save any offence. Even then the local labor is hardly sufficient to harvest even a portion of the left out crop. So the modern day farmers have to toil like their grandfathers did in the field to salvage at least that much of what that would stave off rats of hunger from their stomach in the coming year.

Alarming news! A tiger has fallen prey to Corona infection in a US zoo. Far away in my village, the common quail is letting out its alarmist repetitive notes of ‘pakadleo pakadleo pakadleo’ ‘catch, catch, catch’ as if it’s shouting from the side of war-mongering Corona. I would prefer phonetically similar sounding ‘Kapildeo, kapildeo, kapildeo’ as a eulogy to the famed Indian cricketer. ‘Pakadleo, pakadleo, pakadleo’ turns the situation still more alarming, as if it’s egging on the devil Corona.

There at a distance, a kala teetar, black francolin, is more dignified in its burst of four-worded calls ‘Dekh Ram Teri Kudrat’ ‘O Ram praised be thy creation’. A Muslim would prefer ‘Subhan teri Kudrat’. In fact, ‘teri’ and ‘kudrat’ are so indisputable and clear, as if spoken by the human tongue, that even fundamentally divisive Hindus and Muslims concur at least on this. Or you can say Muslims are more comfortable with ‘kudrat’ being an Urdu word. ‘Teri’ stands neutral.

A male cuckoo is voicing the song of passion for the rapidly fading spring, which hasn’t augured well, at least for the human world. The female’s sound isn’t melodious and sonorous. It’s an excited burst of squeaking notes. Still the most irresponsible mother in the birdie world gets the sweetest of a lover. The male cuckoo lets out honey sweet, sonorous notes which ride the crest of excited spring air to play around many an ear. Her luck, what to say!

I can’t see light at the end of the tunnel after the current lockdown phase comes to an end on April 14. The way things are aggravating, it will surely be extended. My hair has grown wildly to give me the look of an old porcupine, which is shivering for life under an elephant foot. It’s better to look a man-handled ape instead of walking into some Corona infested saloon. I aim for an Einstein look. But then after a time my head looks like a worst caricature of the spiked corona ball. I can’t bear the ignobility of sharing a look with this devil incarnation. I decide to get it done, I mean the hair job. My brother gleefully awaiting the opportunity to give experimental furrows on my head is the only option I have. My trimmer, which has furrowed the crop on my chin, must have been feeling sadistically elated to taste unchartered waters. My niece is eagerly looking forward to some entertainment amidst the Corona boredom.

I politely ask him to give an all-swiping clean off job, knowing fully well that one doesn’t need much of an expertise in swatting the entire crop in Toto. I have accepted my fate. The trimmer buzzes around my ears, with the elated notes of my niece giggling, as he decides to try some hairstyle first. You dare not, I warn. He hardly cares. The first furrow is already there. It’s a point of no return. Despite my repeated admonishments to do an all-clearing job, he takes his styling job too seriously. Everyone wants to learn newer things during the lockdown.

How would you feel if someone tries to force a look of a dandy on your grand daddy face? I have an inkling of what they are up to. They are trying the cock-type spiked look of an adolescent boy in the neighborhood. I can feel the sides getting cleaned. My reverie is broken by my niece’s uncontrollable giggle. They are done with style number one. They hold the mirror to my face all this while trying their level best to convince me that it’s fine and looks normal even for someone who has crossed forty. They put up a mock show to be damn serious. They are trying to convince me to say ‘yes’. I am mesmerized by my old cock-crested look. My reactions gone numb. Far away from all reactions, I feel like searching for some oddest new reaction to this.

I then break the reverie and come with my only possible reaction. All this while, they have built hope that I may agree to their proposal and give them everyday entertainment, not just this fleeting sadistic pleasure at the moment. I give it all in expressing my resentment. Their hopes are tossed out. ‘An all-clear job is best for you idiots!’

They have the prey again in their clutches. I am helpless. They try a few more styles and leave me literally a rakshasha. Ultimately, when they can no longer carry on with experimentation, they try to do what should have been done right in the beginning. Now, I plead to at least get a well-managed clean job instead of giving me uneven furrows here and there. They hold me with such authority. I feel like an errant kid getting punished. Then they declare it is done. My choti, the signature of my sanatan dharma, of me being a Hindu is also gone under the deft strokes of ebullient enthusiasm. They have forgotten to keep a little patch of hair on the crown of my head, as a mark of respect to my highest chakra. Scandalous! Heresy!

In the Corona communalized environment, I pray I won’t fall into the hands of over-zealous Hindu mobsters who will penalize me, mistaking me as a baldy Muslim without the trademark Hindu Choti. But then I will hold out another trademark insignia of not being a Muslim! Heehee!!

Sowing the seeds of a new world post Corona

As the Corona epidemic puts up a painful pause over the globe, life and living gets redefined in sweet-sour ways. The worldwide figure is close to 1.5 million with 75000 deaths. There are tears of loss as people lose their near and dear ones. Sadly, most of the deceased are not getting the farewell they deserve. New York, the city of dreams is the worst affected with around 7000 deaths so far. Pushed against the wall, the authorities are mulling over still sadder option of mass burial. It seems nothing short of a third world war, with Homo-sapiens on the one side and Mother Nature on the other.  

We humans live on hope. We have this awareness of being hopeful. As a derivative of hope, we can search and contrive—even in the bleakest of situations—the moments of celebrations as well. Fighting like an ill-equipped army pitted against a far superior and stealthy force, doctors and nurses are holding the fort for one common humanity. We have many martyrs from our front ranks.

People and medical staff give an applauding farewell to the recovered patients as they leave the hospitals. They are the proof of this wonderful human system. Its natural ability to preserve the life force in it even though our best healthcare labs haven’t been able to manufacture an antidote. This system is endlessly miraculous. The more we learn, the lesser it appears. It has a mystical sovereignty. We can hardly decipher what it has to say on this. In gratitude, people salute the inherent immunity, which is churning out its own resistance in the absence of any man-made antibiotics.

It’s a gloomy picture. Many European counties have 100,000 plus cases. PM Boris Johnson of the UK is in the ICU. The leader fighting against Corona has been seriously wounded. Let’s pray he recovers to start fighting again! Death figures is scarily mounting. The US with 374,000 plus cases and more than 10000 deaths has requested the anti-malarial drug from India. PM Modi is helpless. He cannot export the only apparent solution so far against the virus. Heart says one thing, mind says the other. It’s a see-saw conflict.

Conspiracy theories are circulating as a natural corollary to any kind of disaster. In the UK, people have attacked 5G towers. A word is doing the rounds that the current pandemic is the result of the decreased immunity due to 5G radiation. China, the robotic businessman, ever eager to add to Yuans in its kitty, is now, expertly negotiating trillions of dollars worth Huwei 5G technology in lieu of medical supplies. Majority of the common people see a Chinese hand in the current situations. The governments may have their protocols so may not say it directly, but masses appear to be pretty much convinced about it.    

Against a common threat, the human society is portraying both mundane and not so mundane reactions, either for the good, or for the bad. In the gardens of the gated colonies, with people stacked up on floors above floors, the policemen are once again doing all they can do. They aren’t just the stern gatekeepers who have locked people up with the entire countries being turned into mass prisons. In the gardens of gated colonies, the cops, in gym track-pants and T-shirts, gyrate to the acrobatic exercise beats and lead the people in doing some physical workout. Peering over their balconies and windows, the people catch up the strains of optimism and start exercising. It’s better to muster up strength against the enemy peering over the walls.

Let there be world-level philanthropists, goody-goody doers and charity messiah, that doesn’t intimidate and deter this slight built man from doing all he can do for the cause of humanity. The cyclist crusader has a rickety cycle decorated with Corona warning and safety messages. The cycle carrier behind has a big pot full of his cooking to feed the hungry. He dons a mask, a pair of gloves, his clothes are poor but cleaned with confidence and dignity. As he pedals ahead on the mission, the humanity takes one huge step against the invisible enemy. This is the beginning of our victory and Corona’s defeat.

Trump may have prioritized economy over people while delaying the imposition of lockdown, here in this resource-crunched country, the government sees only up to a point where lives can be saved. The economy is for the people, not vice versa. Do you get the message Mr. President? In the semi-desert district of Rajasthan, the principle of humanism is being taken one step ahead. The district administration is doing its level best to get animal fodder delivered to 300 villages. Cattle are almost family members in an agrarian economy. It shows the district administrators have decided to fight till the end.

Much to be happy about these positive developments, still the sour strains will keep pouring in as can be expected during such critical times. In a sleepy, green mountain village of Himachal Pradesh, the people show how far the feeling of insecurity, panic and fear has sunk in. It is creeping up the mountains. It’s intimidating the pure air. A woman from the village works as a nurse. She has been a steely front-line warrior woman against the virus and is granted recuperating leave for a few days at the village. The villagers but get scared and deny her entry into the village, scared that she may carry the bug to them. The district administration has to fight the people to help her enter her house. With such unwelcoming gesture, I have hardly any doubts about the villagers’ behavior during her stay here. Such social challenges are as grave as the deaths occurring due to the deadly virus.

In Sagar, MP, the priests of all religions in India walk shoulder to shoulder to defeat the common enemy. In their secular and accepting enthusiasm, they cutely break the social distancing norm by the way. But melting of inter-religious aloofness and discrimination is too big a prize for a little threat of Corona infection. Behind them masked policeman walk in marching symmetry maintaining a safe distance from each other. Let’s hope Corona gets scared by this show of solidarity. The society has to give a secular, humanist punch. Otherwise, Corona will bug minds also apart from bodies.

On the streets of Hyderabad, the police carries out a road show. A beautiful mix of ‘matter of fact passing the message’, a show of strength along with an icing on the cake in the form of a sense of aesthetics. A lovely concoction! The bike riders wear Corona helmets, the evil-spiked ball. There is a four member column of horse-mounted policemen with a steely resolve of going to war. Foot-soldiers march carrying glaring placards and banners about the Dos and Donts in the face of the epidemic. The music tempo blares rhythmic beats to mellow down the typical policing frigidity. It looks half admonishing and half celebratory.

Dear brothers and sisters, many a marriage have been postponed for some better sunny day. Not too many people seem eager to start their conjugal duties in such a depressive environment. Those who still itch to jump into the bed, do it almost stealthily, as due to the lockdown rules one cannot have congregations and ceremonies. There are instances where the bride and groom take hurried circles around the holy fire, their faces covered with masks and just 5,6 people witnessing the occasion.

Now, something about the most worrisome aspect of Corona, especially in India: communal consequences of Corona. Already there is a lot of polar ice kind of coldness between Hindus and Muslims in India, the roots going back to the partition time slaughters and even before when Muslims ruled the country for almost 1000 years. Currently, it is a massive political tool for all the major political parties. The religious differentials are so glaring that it is always like a livewire ready to give a blast.

Of course, the triggering agents are very few on both sides. But once the trigger is pushed, it lets out a cascading effect, aided and abetted by rumors and hearsay to take masses in the middle in its wake. The stony knots in the rigid communal hearts of a few Tabligi jamatis have landed in the communal cauldron. It has splashed the boiling waters on many a few simple minds both among the Hindus and Muslims. With around 4000 active cases, and a third of these being directly related to the Markaz congregation in Delhi, the entire country is seething with anger. Even to the most secular minds this high percentage is too much to pass it off as mere chance happening. The figure tell a glaring story and people have every right to cook up their conspiracy theories. Majority of the Hindus now believe that it has been a well-planned bio-terrorism by the Jamatis who deliberately took the virus to every nook corner of the country to teach the Hindus a lesson. Almost everyone is believing that it has been deliberately to put the country down to its knees.

In Muslim majority areas of South Haryana, dozens of absconding and Corona positive Jamatis have been traced after much boil and toil. The state government has been forced to seal the entire areas where these Corona carriers are supposed to have moved. Under such massive sealing measures, the common Muslims are bound to feel offended and a feeling of discrimination and alienation creep in already insecure minds. In the countryside, people see any skull cap as a potential Corona terrorist. I think the communal consequences of Corona will be the worst in India.  

At the Kanpur medical facility, where the Markaz Corona suspects are quarantined, they are on the path of Jehad. They have misbehaved with female medical staff. They are seen spitting around, threatening to infect all and sundry. In Lucknow, a few absconding Jamatis are caught hiding in a crowded bazaar adjoining the army cantonment. There are daily reports of law enforcement tracing down the Jamatis who have gone underground. No wonder, most of the Hindus see it as a well planned ploy to spread Corona throughout the country. It may be true, it may be not. The problem is, in both scenarios only a tiny group is involved, but the entire Muslim population is being put under a scanner now. In reaction, even the common Muslims are reacting. They are refusing to cooperate with quarantine teams. They are insisting to do group namaaz just to prove that they have every right to practice their religion. In such circumstances, all the epidemic time restrictions appear like Government of India is targeting them. Well, that’s what the communalists want. In Kannauj, 40-50 namaazis are caught gathered for group namaaz. It’s good for faith, but not for health. The government is forced to restrict all religious ceremonies across all religions to ward off the community spread of the virus. When the police teams reach the place, they are attacked with bricks and stones gathered on the top floor. I think all the hard core Mullahs who are putting the lives of common Muslims under risk by taking such rigid stance should be sprayed with chlorine mixed waters till the virus of communal hate vanishes from their hearts. Corona on skin is less lethal than the communal virus in hearts and minds.

The entire country is glued to news these days where you hear only and only the tales of Corona. All these communal strains of Corona are infesting the commoners’ minds far and wide. Hindus and Muslims usually stand very cold and detached from each other. In my village, there are some migrant Muslim laborers and a few Muslim families who stay in fruit farms having taken them on yearly rent from the local farmers. They are under scanner now. The villagers are in panic and suddenly some rumor starts that some Muslims have seen in the streets at midnight. Then you hear that they are hiding some Corona positive Jamati who is still untraced. You can very well imagine the condition of a few dozen Muslims among thousands of Hindus. These common people are the ones who are at the maximum risk of communal violence. But then if things turn communal it helps all political parties. One party gets advantage from one group, the other from the other group. So Corona may not have much of political leverage, the communal consequences of Corona definitely possess immense significance. The only antidote possible so far to stop the scourge of Corona, social distancing, is further aggravating the sense of alienation among the Muslims and a sense of irritable aloofness is creeping among them. And if it flares up, who will lose the most? These will be the innocent Hindus in Muslim majority areas and innocent Muslims in Hindu majority areas. The real rascals on both sides hardly pay any price.

On a positive note, in Bhagalpur Bihar, three poor sisters, almost dying of hunger, call the PMO. The rasping sands of Corona have eaten away the famed Indian administrative apathy. Within half hour of their call, they are the much relieved recipients of big packets of food and even new clothes. All the wings of administration are actually functioning the way they should normally. They are in fact justifying their salaries—many of them—for the first time in their careers. As they say, even misfortune comes with positives.

PM Modi is an expert in the art of rallying people behind him for a cause. He has requested people to switch off electric lights between 9 to 9:09 PM on April 5 and light lamps and candles as a Prakash Parva to create a feeling of unity among the countrymen to wage a battle against Corona and be ready to make some individual sacrifices. Quite surprisingly, people really listen to the PM and follow also as he patronly tells them. Lighting the lamp is OK, but you cannot expect the tempo to stay within the somber boundaries of the symbolism of a humble lamp to fight the darkness. People have to have their cannons also to ward off the evil, and remind the unpolluted skies that see we are down but not out. Be ready for our banging exhaust fumes when we come out again. So the leftover firecrackers from Diwali light up the sky and boom-boom go the blast, letting off huge plumes of smoke and airy vibrations shaking the steady wick of oil lamps. Here they won’t listen to even the honorable PM. His political opponents, though, have to condemn the move at all costs, even if it sounds without any rhyme or reason. Muslims again will see it as a majoritarian Hindu way of fighting. The PM has to engineer some Muslim ways of fight also, so that they don’t feel as alienated as they do now.

The celebrities are under the risk of getting redundant under the lockdown stage. On the lesser exciting stage of life, all and sundry, from the strongest to the poorest, appear more or less the same. So the outgoing free-birds are doing their level best to stay in the minds and hearts of their fans from their drawing rooms by sending videos. Vicky Kaushal is seen cleaning his fan. I hope his image doesn’t get cleaned from the hearts of his fans. Or to make it more positive, let his fans start cleaning the dirt of insensitivity and ignorance from their minds and hearts.

As one gets into the corner, move onto the back foot, you get few extra hard punches, if destiny has decided to light a few more stars twinkling across your nervous system. So the poor elders, those very same reprimanding and shrieking bullies, have been made to do shit-ups and sulk like little errant idiots by the mother of all, the grand mama, Mother Nature. Now children, with their innocent selves, are closer and dearer to the grand mama. So now children have also run into the grown-up whiplashing fray. My nephew Nevaan, 20 days short of his fourth birthday, is using the fear psychosis prevalent around to get his parents scared and get away with his treat, the same and very same cartoon channel.

They are in the balcony, trying to put some online-dispatched homework into his little brain. He finds them not so confident in their bullying these days. Caged parrots as they are! He has parroted the common symptoms that are being narrated all around the globe. He can feel that these intimidating elders are much scared of something that they say gives fever and cold. So here goes the little manipulator, using his resources expertly in the changed circumstances: ‘Mummy I think I have fever, feeling cold, and my nose is running!’ he drops the bomb. ‘Let’s not stay in the balcony. Come inside, I feel sleepy, not well. Switch on the TV. May be I won’t feel the fever then!’ Little does he realize, he has been jumping like the naughtiest ape-kid in African jungles till the very moment when the study session started! Oofs, poor elders cornered like never before.

With most of former apes not jumping on the stage of life, the earth appears to be resting after ages. Seismologists have confirmed that earth’s crust is vibrating far less than earlier. It has gone almost into sleep. In the absence of our drama, everything seems to have gone into rejuvenation. Let’s make such civilizational pause mandatory over the globe after regular intervals to allow Mother Nature heal and save it from a burnout.

Are the weapons of destruction and nuclear stockpiles helpful now? The US has shortage of medical equipment and medicines. The boundaries and differentials of international politics have melted and all we see is a group of scared Homo-sapiens, suffering in the very same way and seeking the very same solution. Shouldn’t we realize and remember this even after the worst is over? In the moments of pause, we can calculate the costs of our virtual animosities and insecurities, our limitless defense expenditures, our stockpiling of weapons which turn obsolete and redundant in the face of any danger that challenges us as a common humanity. These murderous weapons are relevant only in cases where only a portion of humanity is engaged in confrontation on the basis of differentials contrived by our mind, which creates hypothetical values to satisfy our individual and group ego.

There being no solution for the common challenge so far, the medics are giving hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug in treating Corona patients. The US President has requested PM Modi, his dear friend, for urgent supplies of this drug. Unfortunately, things are tragically falling apart in the US. Now, PM Modi, afraid of things going out of control in his own house, has said ‘no’ to the request. I think as of now just apprehending that this stock may be needed in future in India is quite unwarranted. It is simply abiding by the age old rules, strictly created by the boundaries and walls of one-upmanship. As of now, there is one sufferer: humans across the globe. Let’s pause the national differentials for the time being and use our resources collectively! A patient, wherever he/she may be in need the medicine now, should be given priority as a citizen of earth, an earthling, the basic identity all of us share on this little planet. We need not stockpile medicines for future patients, while many die presently without them. Those who are dying in any country have a first right to the medicine irrespective of political and boundary divisions. This is the time for sowing the seeds of a collective spirit, a global community. Let’s make it a better world!