Unmasked and foolish
By choice, most Indians are unmasked. We are slipshod and don’t give a damn. I can but pray that COVID-19’s new avatar doesn’t smite us again
“We have a chance to do things extraordinary. As we head out of this pandemic, we can change the world. Create a world of love. A world where we are kind to each other.
— Johnny Corn
My new friend Johnny got it just right, but we in India and around the world apparently have not, as haven’t leaders across the new ‘gola’ (globe), with many of them getting it disastrously wrong. The rulers of this spanking new world are roaring, guffawing, stymieing and invoking malice, oft making a mockery of their own stated policies and yet-to-beproven legacies. History shall judge them, and I leave them to their fate.
That’s what a happenstance world did to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Alexander and Napoleon, for it had no choice. Given this backdrop, who am I, a teeny-weeny bellwether, born to tough times and now facing tougher ones? I have now decided to be the Cyclops, albeit one with one lesser eye. COVID-19? I have written about it before, but no one listens. We are back to that broken record again, as people en masse forget the groundreality—that even a belled cat, over time, learns to tread softly and strike without jingling the bells if forced to flare its nostrils or thrash its tail. Today, COVID-19 and our leaders are doing that; flaring the cats’ nostrils and tails, as also those of others who stand on two legs. I am not talking of simians, even though man is now behaving like them without the benefit of a tail.
The core word here is ‘again’. The numbers of infected are rising exponentially, again.
And yet, we are showing callousness and complete disrespect to the impending dread, not to mention our nonchalance and careless indifference,
again. People are dying, again.
And we are showing a complete disregard for all norms and precautions, again.
Why do I say this?
Well, perhaps it is because I have a beautiful wife and whenever the missus and I enter a club or any public premises, people start laughing and whispering in sudden and temporary huddles. Why? The core word now is
‘because’. Initially, it is because of the damned masks. Then it is because we sanitize our hands and our glasses too, and then we hear them break out in a cackle. Why? Well, it is because they inform us with great spirits inspired by Bacchus, wistfully clutching their Corona-lockdown bloated stomachs, that: “Bhai, Corona khatam ho gaya
hai. Itna mat daro (Brother, COVID-19 is gone. Don’t be such a puss”).
I like being a puss. I won’t be scared or cautious and will surely join their ranks. Together, we shall laugh at those still losing family members to this unrelenting scourge and celebrate their misery. You should too, and rejoice in the fact that in the last one month or thereabouts, India is reporting over 20,000 new COVID-19 cases each day, with national positivity rates pushing the 5-per cent mark. All of us feasting on Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani should remember that barely a year ago, the 5-per cent threshold mandated a lockdown.
Today, when the National Capital Region (NCR) is romancing with a daily positivity rate of nearly 8 per cent and more, we are thumbing our noses at a pandemic that had us cowering and scurrying for cover, forcing us to hide inside our homes for months on end, watching dreadful images of bodies lined up outside crematoriums or buried ones surfacing on the banks of our once-sacred rivers.
I agree, let’s all laugh some more. It is as good to laugh as it is foolish to ignore reality. We have all seen good people dying all around us, many of them for no reason other than the lack of oxygen in our now world-famous medical system. Let’s forget the death and the dead. Let’s remember the Butter Chicken.
Chutzpah personified
This abject lack of memory and temporary bout of amnesia is, at least to me, as stifling as it is stunning and leaves me wincing. Take some time out. Remember the ‘palayan’ (home-going migration) of crores of village-helpers from our cities. Some walked for hours, others for weeks and a few for almost a month to get back home. Many died. And our authorities bashed with ‘lathis’ (batons and sticks) the harassed and baffled lot. Till recently, they cleaned our homes and cooked for us. The really desperate ones hid in cement blenders and empty fuel trucks to go back to their villages. It was complete pillage and carnage.
The authorities claim that four to five lakh Indians died due to Coronavirus. Global bodies disagree, insisting that over a crore of Indians have and many more shall. Yet, we continue with a shameless and dispassionate indifference toward something that has seen much of Europe and the Americas getting decimated. Hell, the yanks even distributed six-packs of beer and $100-bills to those who would deign to take a vaccine jab. In India, we proffered a more magnanimous approach—we claim to have provided free vaccines to almost a 100 crore people.
It is perhaps because of this that many Indians have now chosen to stay unmasked. We are a slipshod palladium and clearly don’t give a damn about ourselves, forget our brethren and those fallen along the way. I can but pray that COVID-19’s new avatar doesn’t smite us
again. I will not call this a Fifth Wave, but I can’t shut out the fact that it is (h)taunting us. Even as positivity numbers rise, we have reverted to type. The few still wary are scurrying for cover and being laughed at.
What to do now?
This new troth is very translucent, since there is no visible succour. As Steven Magee wrote recently, “COVID-19, are you going to be naughty or nice to me?” These are deep words, and Steven makes sense. Most idiot people around me do not, and the core word now is ‘people’. For people smile, people peeve and people pique. I don’t worry. That’s because these are foolish souls who don’t even care about themselves, so how would they care about me? You and I could soon be just another banal statistic that they shall discuss for a bit as they go about their unmasked business and remaining tryst with life.
Nonetheless, I have responsibilities. This includes my still-stunning missus, the few friends I care and yearn for and two cats and two very spoilt dogs. If I whistle now way past midnight, this dreadful foursome shall come running to me with very ingratiating purrs and pouts. That, in essence, is life. And I intend to live it to the fullest.
To those who have shunned basic sense and sensibility, I beseech you to continue to enjoy your lockdown-less life while it lasts—for you have to remember that this is not malaria or cholera or yesteryear, and that just one cough of yours can send me to oblivion and Christa. To those who are still careful, I celebrate and thank you for your putrid fear and petrified efforts, even if the world laughs at you. To those still enjoying Butter Chicken and liquor on the roof of their cars—well, enjoy, and I pray that it lasts. Amen.
I don’t want to call it a Fifth Wave, but I can’t shut out the fact that it is taunting us. And as positivity numbers rise, Indians have reverted to type. The few still wary of this are scurrying for cover. They are all being laughed at