Pandemic Panic

By Venkatesh E

The world is going through a challenging situation. We are fighting an invisible enemy. India is also fighting the virus with heart and soul; however, many things are becoming the opposite of itself. To cite a few examples, some doctors are working in the opposite direction by shooing away patients telling them there is no bed though beds are available. The ruling party itself has few people against it. The opposition party is leaving no opportunities to rule the state. Negative reports are termed positive and positive is definitely a negative remark. Few ministers are more interested in numerology than virology and hence many prominent decisions await a fancy date. Polls are more important than death tolls. Death has become just a data and is no more a situation to grieve over, as people are more inclined towards protecting themselves when there is a death in the family. Natural death, or death by any other reason is treated as privilege.

All of a sudden, people who were running behind money and success are today realising that a healthy life or a decent cremation is the need of the hour. Few people are jobless and without income, few people are working round the clock for the same income and there are teachers taking extreme academic pressures only to get a fifty percent of their already paltry income. Parents and school managements are at loggerheads debating on payment of fee.

While the medical fraternity wearing the PPE kit profusely sweating and dehydrating themselves, is trying to control the spread of virus, there is another crowd oblivious of all the restrictions and roaming around without a mask and a purpose. People who complained about an hour-long queue in front of the ATMs for withdrawal during demonetization are now standing in ten hour long queues to deposit the dead body for a cremation.

And there are two groups of people who were considering themselves as prominent, the ones who are cremated and the ones who are buried. Today there is a swap happening between burial and cremation owing to shortages and long queues, and sadly the dead are not aware of it. It is easy for people to roam in disguise but not with masks. Like movie sequels we have Wave-1, Wave-2 and Wave-3 targeting age groups.

Something which is freely available in the air was never appreciated and today oxygen has become a controversial topic. A Good Samaritan in power exposes a scandal and is slapped with allegations of communal disharmony.

Gone are the days when a statue was sculpted to honor a leader. Today getting a mammoth statue sculpted has become the achievement of a leader. Tax money is squeezed out from middle class families to ensure barons and merchants flee the country. The only way to fade a problem from the people's mind is to subject them to a bigger problem.

Democracy remains only in the books of Indian Constitution. The pandemic has triggered panic. What remains is a hope and a race for a healthy life or a decent burial. Life ends but life cycle continues.

By Venkatesh E