Moments of duress could set off a chord of poetry
Goa, despite being a tourism hub, has, at least so far, not been as badly affected by the virus as some other places like Mumbai or Delhi. The major problem here was getting the hundreds marooned abroad, mostly working on cruise liners, back home. This exercise took more time than anticipated, with a servile state government constantly seeking directions from the centre. Now almost all the ‘shippies’ who wished to return are back with their families, with one who had been given up for dead recovering miraculously in a hospital in Italy. Given the grimness all around, this was a hearttouching story.
The lockdown did not affect me in any life-transforming fashion. I’m no party-hopping, backslapping extrovert. I stayed at home, here in Dona Paula, relieved that my younger daughter who works in Delhi was back with us.
Not being much of a compulsive Facebooker, I’ve spent the days as I usually do, unearthing a dusty old novel I hadn’t read and writing the occasional poem. In fact, the number of poems, that drifted my way, related directly to the lockdown surprised me a little — five in all, of which I published two. Surprised because I’m blessed by poetry — any kind of poetry — six or seven times during an entire year. The poems don’t usually arrive as gift packages. But that’s how poetry can sometimes work. Poems are fickle, unreliable characters, mostly stingy and reluctant to part with themselves but on occasion generous and benevolent. Unusually for me, two of the poems came in the form of songs, and since I’m tone deaf, I wonder if I’ve got them right.
With so much time on my hands and with its publication deferred indefinitely, I’ve gone back time and again to fiddle and fret over my new manuscript of poems called I’m never sure if all the tinkering has actually improved it or made the bad worse. That’s how poetry works. In this craft, you can be your own worst enemy. After all these years, apart from soliciting suggestions from the publisher himself, I’ve long ago stopped sending out poems for a lookover by my peers. In any case, I’m now considered a ‘senior poet’, which only means that ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ is a thing of the past. I’m a little more crafty now. When I find myself fiddling around with poems already published several years ago, I know that I’m beginning to suffer from a loss of words; from a loss of what people puzzlingly call ‘inspiration’. Every new poem now is akin to an unexpected present.
I’m no globe trotter, and as the title of one of my books,
suggests, I’m the homebound sort, quite happy to help around with mundane chores. And though I say so myself, the home is beautifully located with a view of the sun dipping into the waters at a confluence of the sea and the Mandovi river. For some odd reason, I think of it as a lion-mane sunset.
Unlike several other cities, Panjim was never under a prison-like shutdown. It remained partially open and even during the most confining times, I was able to procure my cartons of cigarettes. I’m a heavy smoker, and though my tribulations are petty compared to the heartbreaking scenes I see every day on television, I still feel a little relieved to be able to continue with this bad habit. Indeed, its threatened absence only intensified the need.
For many people here, the reopening of the fish market will be a relief, for both seller and haggler. I feel more at home in the vegetable and fruit market next to it, now fully open and graced by those huge murals by Mario Miranda looking down benevolently at us.
As I’ve suggested, moments of duress and suffocating confinement can set off a chord of poetry. Imprisonment has been the source of some great creative work. Just look back at the Russian poets and writers confined in the Gulag during Stalin’s regime. Comparatively, our tribulations are, of course, minor. But a poem is still a poem whatever its kickoff point. Here is a new one I’d like to share with you:
He has been driving an auto rickshaw through the smoggy roads of Delhi for 35 years.
But this evening, he says he has been driving his auto rickshaw for three days only—he means, after a prolonged break from work during the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.
“I’m barely getting customers,” mutters Rajesh, shrugging his shoulders. In his late
50s, his grey hair are arranged like a series of sand dunes over his head. His white stubble, scattered around his black mask, is glinting like mountain snow under sunshine. You can even glimpse his white moustache, for, like so many others in this city, he is wearing his mask far below the nose.
Since morning Rajesh got only two rides. “I have only made about ₹200 today,” he says. He would earn about a ₹1,000 a day in the BC (Before Corona) era. Circling around the India Gate circle, Rajesh admits he could have easily returned to his family in Garh Mukteshwar, a UP town not far from Delhi. “But my wife and two sons depend on my earnings.”
He again shrugs his shoulders.
The auto rickshaw stops at a traffic light. A red air-conditioned DTC bus comes to a halt too. Inside, the bus passengers are spread wide apart, leaving alternate seats empty to obey the precepts of social distancing. A man sitting by the window is wearing a glass shield on his face for protection. He stares out rather absentmindedly at Rajesh, who responds by staring back wordlessly at him with curiosity.
For more than a month, Rajesh was holed up inside his one-room home in east Delhi’s Lakshmi Nagar. “I made zero money during that period.”
He also spent zero money on food. “I would go to a nearby school where they were serving free meals to labour class.”
As an explanation, he says without any the city you never see
far recuperated from the disease in the country, taking the recovery rate to 48.4%, which is among the most promising figures on the infection across the world. The low CFR and high recovery rate indicate that India may not be witnessing an impact as severe as in some of the other countries ravaged by the pathogen.
While experts say the peak of the outbreak is yet to come, an analysis on preprint server medrxiv showed that there could be independent regional crests across the vast geography of the country at different points in time. “The peaks might start as early as the end of July in some states and go all the way to September in many others,” said the research paper titled ‘Lockdown Effect on Covid-19 Spread in India’. Some studies also expect another infection spurt in winter this year.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said India was “far away from the peak”. “Our preventive measures to curtail Covid-19 have been very effective,” said ICMR scientist Nivedita Gupta.
In the 93 days since the outbreak began, total infections were at 207,112 and 5,753 people died of the disease till Tuesday. Three states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi – currently account for half of all infections in the country but the Union government has identified 145 new districts, mostly rural, that have reported cases over the past three weeks and could emerge as “epicentres”. New infections have been reported among the millions of migrants returning to their home towns from urban centres amid a national lockdown that has slowed economic activity.
The latest 50,000 infections were recorded in a week. India reported its first 50,000 Covid-19 cases in nearly 66 days, with a wave of infections beginning in March after three isolated cases were first reported in Kerala in January. It took 12 days for the cases to climb from 50,000 to 100,000.
The disease’s doubling rate, which is defined as the average period it takes for a twofold rise, changed from 13.9 days on May 18 – the day the cases hit 100,000 – to 15.2 on Tuesday. The rate was four days at the beginning of April.
With a surge in Covid-19 cases, India has overtaken Germany and France to become the seventh biggest hot spot of the pathogen, which has rapidly swept the entire globe.
“It is wrong comparison to look at total number of Covid-19 cases only and mention that India has the seventh highest cases. Our population too should be considered... Fourteen countries with total similar population as India have reported 22.5 times more cases and 55.2 times deaths,” Agarwal said.
Experts say the cases are expected to surge as India exits the national lockdown – necessitated by the pandemic – in a graded manner and could spread to the rural parts of the country.
The Centre has also reoriented its strategy against the outbreak – from asking people to “stay home” to break the chain of infections, it is now asking citizens to learn to live with the virus by ensuring strict social distancing and hand hygiene.
“Our battle with Covid-19 is not over, but we will not be afraid of the virus. We will take all precautions and we are going to move on with our lives,” a tweet by the Press Information Bureau said while releasing a video on lockdown relaxations. “Our analysis shows that people at high risk from Covid-19 are elderly people and those with co-morbidities. One in every two Covid-19 deaths in India has been from the senior citizen population, who constitute 10% of our total population. 73% of Covid-19 deaths have been of people with co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, heart and respiratory diseases,” Agarwal said.
The research paper published on medrxiv said that as isolated outbreaks spread across swathes of the country, the government needs to assess its response and preparedness. “Resources must be mobilised to help one cluster of states and then move to the next cluster. It might be useful for the central government and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to classify states in terms of the phases of the epidemic. Even as the worst-hit states are being addressed, the next set could be put on high alert. It is this dynamic policy intervention that will be required to deal effectively with the cascading pattern of the pandemic across Indian states,” it said.
Efforts to ramp up testing have also led to a wider detection of cases. About 120,000 samples are being tested for Covid-19 on average every day, with 476 government and 205 private facilities carrying out diagnoses. There are, however, concerns that India could still largely be testing people with symptoms targetedly, leaving scope for the disease to spread undetected.
On a question of whether community transmission, when a disease spreads indiscriminately in a population, was underway, the ICMR scientist said: “Instead of using the word community transmission, it is important to understand the extent of spread of the disease and where do we stand in comparison with other countries.” She added that ICMR was conducting a serological survey to assess the extent of the spread of the infectious disease. “Almost 34,000 people are being tested as a part of the survey; the results will be published in a week.”
A record single-day spike of 1,298 fresh cases took the Covid-19 tally in Delhi to 22,132 and the death toll mounted to 556. Maharashtra reported 2,287 new cases, taking the tally to 72,300, while fatalities rose to 2,465.
States with relatively fewer cases have seen spikes as residents, including migrant workers travelling in special trains, have returned home. UP reported 369 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the tally to 8,729, including 2,404 patients who are migrant workers. Experts say the coming weeks will be crucial and the gains of the lockdown could get undermined if clusters are not contained effectively.
Congress member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi took note of Moody’s action in a Twitter post.
“Moody’s has rated Modi’s handling of India’s economy a step above JUNK,” he wrote. “Lack of support to the poor and the MSME sector means the worst is yet to come.”
The upbeat note struck by Modi in his speech cheered the financial markets. The benchmark Sensex index of the Bombay Stock Exchange rose 522.01 points, or 1.57%, to 33,825.53 and the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty gained 152. 95 points, or 1.56%, to 9,979.10. The rupee gained 18 paise to 75.36 per dollar
Modi said one of the “highest priorities” of his government is to strengthen the economy.
“For this the government is taking decisions required to be taken immediately. And simultaneously, such decisions have also been taken that would help the country in the long run,” he said.
The Prime Minister was referring to the ~20.97 lakh crore citizens welfare and economic stimulus packages announced between March 26 and May 17 that included free foodgrains and direct cash benefits to the poor, credit guarantee schemes for the industry, monetary measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and wide-ranging policy reforms.
India has left behind the lockdown and has entered into “unlock phase one” and a major part of the economy has restarted, Modi said. “Today we are able to do this because when coronavirus was spreading globally, India took right steps at the right time. When we compare us with other countries, we come to know about the effectiveness of the lockdown in India,” he said.
“The Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) helped in giving immediate relief to the poor. Under this scheme, rations have been provided to 740 million beneficiaries. Free rations are also being supplied to the migrant labourers,” he said. He said the package helped the poor and 80 million of them got free cooking gas cylinders under the scheme. PMGKY was the first response to Covid-19 that was announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26. Prime Minister Modi said the entire package was a combination of providing relief to the underprivileged and restoring the economy along with policy reforms. “For us, reform is not a random or scattered decision. For us, reform is systematic, planned, integrated, inter-connected and futuristic process. For us, reform means dare to take decisions and take them to the logical conclusion,” he said.
He said five things are necessary to take India on the higher growth trajectory — intent, inclusion, investment, infrastructure and innovation. “You can get a glimpse of them also in the bold decisions taken recently,” he said.
The government has given farmers the freedom to sell their produce without having to go through middlemen. Modi said labour laws were being reformed to create more job opportunities and the private sector participation has been allowed in strategic sectors such as space and nuclear energy.
Modi said the path of growth was self-reliance and the world had great expectations from India. “India has potential, strength and ability. All of you should, India’s industry should take full advantage of the trust the world has for India,” he said.
He added: “Getting growth back is not that difficult. And, above all you have, Indian industries have a clear path, which is the path of Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).”
“It is about creating a strong enterprise in India. Enterprises that can become global forces. it about generating employment. It is about empowering our people to come out and create solutions that can define the future of our country,” he said.
Separately, electronics, information technology and communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said India had emerged as the second-largest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world.“from just 2 factories, we now have 200 manufacturing units. India’s electronic manufacturing was worth ~190,366 crore in 2014, today it’s ~458,000 crore. India’s global share in electronics has risen from 1.3% in 2012 to 3% in 2018. Electronic production has surpassed exports,” he said. He also said that the Centre was working towards constructing a robust manufacturing ecosystem in the country.
Sunil Kant Munjal, a past president of the CII and one of the founders of the Hero Group, said industry will play probably the most crucial role in making India self-reliant. “The Atmanirbhar Bharat which PM Modi talked about... will rightly be driven by the five ‘I’s — intent, inclusion, investment, infrastructure and innovation,” Munjal said. “Another ‘I’ of internet would be important too, though one could say that infrastructure would cover that. For India to stay safe and maintain modest growth in these difficult times, it is important that both government and industry show their best intent to take bold decisions and make tough choices which will make us competitive, strong, agile and better prepared to face the future.”
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