I
don’t know whether mankind has taken leave of its senses. Read this essay, and
this one. At least some people are still thinking like me, here and abroad.
I
don’t know whether everyone has forgotten the warning that ‘the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself’, whether you picked it up from Gandhiji, or
Franklin Roosevelt, or Harry Potter.
I
don’t know why panic has been spread like this. Didn’t people die in vast
numbers routinely before this, of accidents, pollution, bad genes, other
epidemics and just extreme poverty? Has everybody forgotten that panic itself
can be a deadly and indiscriminate killer? Recall what they did to anybody
suspected of having leprosy in Europe of the middle ages…
I
don’t know whether the only people who are all for an indefinite lockdown (at
least those who chatter on social media) are those who are both a) bone lazy
and basically hate to work, b) assured that even if they don’t work for months
at a stretch, their pockets won’t hurt, and c) don’t give a damn about all who
are not so lucky, and so do not feel horribly guilty like me. Have we asked the
many hundred million who don’t write their opinions on social media?
All
non-essential services will remain closed. So everyone from us teachers to
actors and sportspersons, everyone in the transport and hospitality and
beverage trades, to name just a few, we are all ‘non-essential’, eh? We should remember that forever:
this is what society really thinks about us!
Since
when did governments start caring about saving every human life, ignoring all other priorities? Why do riots and
wars keep happening then, killing truly vast numbers, if governments really
care? (I know everybody has forgotten, but there was the Delhi riot as recently
as February!)
Is
saving lives that important? Since
when did it become absolutely essential to stay alive at all costs, regardless
of whether such a life is meaningful or not, liveable or not? I for one
wouldn’t want to live the life of a helpless cripple in pain, or a starving,
freezing, regularly beaten prisoner in a concentration camp, or someone who has
been permanently cut off from all work and all loved ones – aren’t there many
people who would agree with me, who are privately beginning to lament that
living life in an interminable lockdown is not much better than a quick death?
In any case, how have we convinced ourselves that if this virus doesn’t kill
us, we shall all live happily ever after?
At
least our own Chief Minister has said that it is a suffocating situation (dom bondho kora poristhiti), and therein
lies some little hope for the likes of me. I fervently pray that next time such
a weird thing happens, I will not be around to see it.
Ah
yes, many good things have happened too. Crime is down, pollution is down, death
by accidents on the roads is down. A lot of people, especially in countries
like ours, are re-learning the worth and importance of manual labour, since
domestic helps have gone on an undeclared strike. Pity that we could never find
more sensible, less drastic ways to solve the same problems.
One
last, very sobering thought. I hope all those idiots who used to imagine and
boast that science and technology have made us masters of the world will fall
silent for a long, long time. Earthquakes, tsunamis and viral epidemics are all
Nature’s diverse ways of reminding us, not too gently, that when She wants to
strike, mankind must behave just in the same helpless and panic-stricken mode
as we used to do hundreds, even thousands of years ago! We need to live with
that humbling knowledge instead of hubris…
5 comments:
Sir,
I found this one to be interesting.
https://theprint.in/opinion/modi-had-trapped-himself-in-a-corner-then-coronavirus-arrived-to-save-the-day-for-him/399636/
Thanks,
Subhadip.
Could be true as far as it goes, Subhadip, but I fear that this has gone far beyond individual personalities. Witness how the majority of chief ministers have actually urged the PM to continue with the lockdown. They are all so terrified that most are not thinking straight any more. Everybody has forgotten the most basic and harsh truth: that viral epidemics don't just go away, they subside as a threat only when a large enough part of the population has been infected, survived the infection, and developed immunity. I think, in fact, that no government really cares about 'saving every life': what they are really frightened of is that if the infection spreads too far and too fast, the hopelessly inadequate medicare services would collapse within days.
The Indian medicare system surely needs to be replenished in a way; otherwise, it's just going to haunt the various governments like this!
A short video on where physics is helping in this global war against cover-19:https://physicsworld.com/a/how-physics-is-helping-in-the-war-against-covid-19/
Dear Sir,
I urge you to read this article:
https://theprint.in/opinion/more-than-300-indians-have-died-of-the-coronavirus-and-nearly-200-of-the-lockdown/400714/
It states that nearly 200 Indians have died due to the lockdown. Of these, 39 people have committed suicide because they feared contracting the virus, thanks to the panic created, or due to loneliness or being quarantined. Take a moment to think about the absurdity of this: Indians died due to measures that were meant to save them from dying. That is the degree of the panic created by politicians and mass media.
The lockdown is meant to save our lives from the coronavirus. But for some, it made life so difficult that surviving the virus was pointless. I would like to repeat what you have said. People have convinced themselves that if this virus doesn’t kill them, they shall live happily ever after.
Yours faithfully,
Swarnava Mitra.
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