In a few days (read 18+3), India will defeat a tiny, coiled-up, caged
but strikingly intelligent physical entity. Or so we hope, we pray.
In order to settle an age-old debate, a small virus has taken it upon itself to paste the signature of its life on the history of mankind through a tsunami of deaths. Our make-believe world has been torn to shreds.
With all major countries having shut themselves within four walls, one human invention is playing dice today. Democracy.
We have a gold-digger virus to be honest. I mean, it's not that unexpected right? The damn virus has mingled with the human genome. No doubt it can sniff the two things which define the modern man : Greed and Vengeance.
Of course, mostly it has run havoc in wealthy countries so far! It seems like a pattern that's just too hard to ignore. It was as if, it had nurtured the American dream for eons.
But as we all know, money brings men's downfall. The same fate awaits the virus. People will find a way out. It is then, that the second trait might wake up. A defeated soul might seek within, but a defeated greedy soul will cause harm to one and all. It seems today that the poorer countries are bracing for impact of the virus' vengeance before it eventually gets wiped off.
Yet, we are humans. So we take measures. The same is true for my country : a land of innumerable cultures, a home to half a billion homeless entities, a land so rich in minerals that even drinking water carries their fingerprints. Yes, such is my country; a home to a trillion dreams, a song of ancient medicines and a broken stage for democracy.
In Europe people are being fined for coming out on the streets. In India, we have ensured that this can never become a reality. You see, to pay fines you need money in the first place. Surprise! The majority of the people you see out in the open, don't have any. But we need to save ourselves as responsible fighters of the day. So we let the hungry police feed on them.
The police force in India has never quite understood its role. A British remnant, it assumes (or, is taught) that the only way to get your point across is to bludgeon your way through. Pointy ends, we believe are not for the crowd.
Hence we see hundreds of videos of Indians victory-parading through the streets during a curfew. And we think all these people to be fools. We sit inside a privileged bubble and pass our pathetic judgements. We say that the police needs to control the fools. That the people can be naive or innocent, doesn't occur to us. It never will because we are afraid. In fear we press the triggers that we always try to hide in the closets.
We have normalized certain cringe-worthy things in our society. We allow the police to hit us, to talk trash to us. We expect them to never listen to us. So when we see the police beating the hell out of people with bamboo sticks, we laugh. More importantly, we laugh casually. We justify the poor getting beaten and sub-consciously we pat our ego, our educated ego.
An old friend pointed out to me something very interesting today : The same people whom they kept uneducated forever will now become their greatest nightmares. (The context was people still crowding in shops and markets in panic and Kolkata Police not allowing even e-shopping delivery persons).
The poor lack scientific temper because we never took it upon ourselves to educate them. If they could grasp something as complicated and nuanced as the Mahabharata, they certainly possess the stomach for some elementary science and maths. But all we speak about mathematics is zero.
In a truly democratic nation, the police serves the people. The poor, the police and the politics each belong to the same system. In India, muscle rules over sense. Unless the opposite happens, no matter how efficiently we check pandemics, the virus will live on.
In order to settle an age-old debate, a small virus has taken it upon itself to paste the signature of its life on the history of mankind through a tsunami of deaths. Our make-believe world has been torn to shreds.
With all major countries having shut themselves within four walls, one human invention is playing dice today. Democracy.
We have a gold-digger virus to be honest. I mean, it's not that unexpected right? The damn virus has mingled with the human genome. No doubt it can sniff the two things which define the modern man : Greed and Vengeance.
Of course, mostly it has run havoc in wealthy countries so far! It seems like a pattern that's just too hard to ignore. It was as if, it had nurtured the American dream for eons.
But as we all know, money brings men's downfall. The same fate awaits the virus. People will find a way out. It is then, that the second trait might wake up. A defeated soul might seek within, but a defeated greedy soul will cause harm to one and all. It seems today that the poorer countries are bracing for impact of the virus' vengeance before it eventually gets wiped off.
Yet, we are humans. So we take measures. The same is true for my country : a land of innumerable cultures, a home to half a billion homeless entities, a land so rich in minerals that even drinking water carries their fingerprints. Yes, such is my country; a home to a trillion dreams, a song of ancient medicines and a broken stage for democracy.
In Europe people are being fined for coming out on the streets. In India, we have ensured that this can never become a reality. You see, to pay fines you need money in the first place. Surprise! The majority of the people you see out in the open, don't have any. But we need to save ourselves as responsible fighters of the day. So we let the hungry police feed on them.
The police force in India has never quite understood its role. A British remnant, it assumes (or, is taught) that the only way to get your point across is to bludgeon your way through. Pointy ends, we believe are not for the crowd.
Hence we see hundreds of videos of Indians victory-parading through the streets during a curfew. And we think all these people to be fools. We sit inside a privileged bubble and pass our pathetic judgements. We say that the police needs to control the fools. That the people can be naive or innocent, doesn't occur to us. It never will because we are afraid. In fear we press the triggers that we always try to hide in the closets.
We have normalized certain cringe-worthy things in our society. We allow the police to hit us, to talk trash to us. We expect them to never listen to us. So when we see the police beating the hell out of people with bamboo sticks, we laugh. More importantly, we laugh casually. We justify the poor getting beaten and sub-consciously we pat our ego, our educated ego.
An old friend pointed out to me something very interesting today : The same people whom they kept uneducated forever will now become their greatest nightmares. (The context was people still crowding in shops and markets in panic and Kolkata Police not allowing even e-shopping delivery persons).
The poor lack scientific temper because we never took it upon ourselves to educate them. If they could grasp something as complicated and nuanced as the Mahabharata, they certainly possess the stomach for some elementary science and maths. But all we speak about mathematics is zero.
In a truly democratic nation, the police serves the people. The poor, the police and the politics each belong to the same system. In India, muscle rules over sense. Unless the opposite happens, no matter how efficiently we check pandemics, the virus will live on.
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