Monsoon post

This June was one of the rainiest in living memory. I wish that it wasn’t so perpetually sultry despite so much water falling from the skies!

I recently took the first dose of the Covid vaccine. The biggest motivating factor for me was the rumour going around that in a few months’ time inter-state travel might be allowed only to those who have been fully vaccinated. I am also hoping that, with all states now on high alert, a large proportion of the population already immunized through direct infection and an ever growing number being vaccinated, the third wave, if and when it comes, will only be a ripple, and after that Covid will be finally forgotten. The best sign would be schools and colleges reopening for all, and the online-education nonsense (you doubt me? Consider this: how would you like to be operated upon by a surgeon who has only learnt his craft online?) laid to rest once and for all.

A number of ex students stranded in Durgapur since March 2020 (mostly male, it goes without saying) have kept me alive and sane all through by turning up for adda sessions every other day, and going out wandering with me along the highways, sometimes on bikes and sometimes in cars. They insist I have done the same for them. They range between 16 and 35 years of age. Lately we have had some wonderful picnics together at home, my mother happily included, with all of them pitching in with the cooking – my contribution being paying for most of it and being hugely appreciative of all their efforts.

I am watching Ray on Netflix right now, episode by episode, there being four of them. I most definitely thought that the first one was vastly inferior in every sense to Satyajit Ray’s original short story, but I shall reserve detailed comment until I have watched the lot.

In connection with what I wrote in the last post about improving our democracy, I am delighted to see that no less august a personage than the current Chief Justice of India seems to hold exactly the same views: mere periodic polls are not an adequate safeguard against tyranny (in the name of the majority) – see this news report about his recent speech.