Elections and lockdowns

My mother and I did our citizens’ duty today by going over to vote for the highly fraught state Assembly elections. I don’t take that ‘duty’ very seriously though: I’d have run away if I had seen a crowd, quiet or unruly. The heat was bad enough. I have been wondering for many years now why the polls cannot be held during the most comfortable months and why, in a land and age when so many things are being done by so many people constantly over the internet, facilities have still not been created whereby people can vote from the safety and comfort of their homes. I also never stop reflecting over the irony that the same neo-liberal thinkers who tell you, while teaching economics according to their favourite (and utterly fantastical-) ‘perfect competition’ model that your choices, as one consumer among hundreds of millions, count for nothing at all, turn around and solemnly assure you how important your single vote is!

The Covid scare is back with a vengeance, alas, and, after a straight six-month offline run, I have had to temporarily shut my classes down again, heaven knows for how long this time round. I have sworn that I shall not comment any more on this now-sickening issue (pun intended) any more until it is well and truly behind us, but I shall say that this ‘second wave’ was entirely man-made and hence avoidable – and when I say ‘man-’ I blame the governments at the state and central levels only partly. So many hundred million people need not have started partying and attending political meetings and religious fairs as though there would be no tomorrow as soon as the first wave started receding. As I keep saying wearily, I see only opposite kinds of madness pitted against one another all around me…

I am stuck at home, I cannot even go off to swim, the summer is roasting us, and there is no hope on the horizon of going travelling anywhere anytime soon. Talk about vegetating. How I miss the cool hills and scent of pine and snow in the air! It’s been two years since I had my last glimpse of the Himalayas.

My daughter is stuck in Delhi under lockdown, which they keep extending, though it should have become clear to the meanest intelligence that lockdowns don’t work, at least not any more – look at Maharashtra, where the daily tally of new infections, according to government sources, has remained more or less the same despite the whole state having been shut down for more than ten days now. And I suppose it will be West Bengal’s turn soon, as soon as a new government has settled in. Heaven knows how we are all going to carry on. Financial distress as well as mental health problems are spreading like wildfire, but there is too little attention and concern about them yet…

I wish all my favourite ex students, scattered all around the country and abroad, the best of health and spirits. I hope we shall prevail, and I know most of us will.