Scientists say that the most common nightmare is the feeling of ‘falling’. The popular explanation is that as our body falls asleep, the muscles relax and our brain is conned into believing that we are really going down. This time, it is not a con. We are really falling.
Falling through surreal dimensions touched by the tragic incandescence of burning pyres, the heat of melting funereal furnaces, the laments of grieving folk and the sighs of ghosts. Amidst this ordeal thrum strident throats demanding loyalty, spewing hate and invective, drunk with power or the appetence for it.
Wait. This is real, isn’t it? You got that right.
The biggest fool is the fool who believes in his own intelligence. See, there are no more lockdowns, only Corona Curfews. The hypocrisy of looking good sits well on the face of power, painted with the cosmetics of self-delusion as it feeds on the dumb devotion of lotus-eating zombies. The lullaby to success has been sung before the race is over and won. Dare not criticise good intentions, for it is anti-national to question facts. Doubt discourages India’s fight against the virus even though dying men are tweeting about it from hospital beds. Relax, God is chilling in the heavens while humans fight the good fight. What has happened to us, once an Asian Tiger and democratic powerhouse?
Thousands of our countrymen are dropping like flies, gasping for breath without the oxygen cylinders used for political photo-ops. Ambulance sirens are becoming the default noise on our roads. Corpses lie packed at end-of-the-world terminals with tickets to nowhere. Do we cremate the hope of India that has been squandered by the hyperbole and the hubris of defensive minds? Alas, we have the bombast of leadership to give us confidence, not the humility of truth to soothe our fears.
Wasn’t it to comfort us that Surat officials claimed that the number of Covid deaths were just 22 while the crematoriums got around 80 bodies per day in the past two weeks? Isn’t that why on April 13, 84 Covid victims were cremated in Lucknow but government data said 18? Telangana fudged its Covid death numbers by over 60 percent. It took the deaths of two sadhu chieftains and Prime Minister Modi’s appeal for the pandemic ‘pawry’ in Haridwar to slow down. Election rallies and leaders have thrown masks to the changing winds, creating a rural super spreader.
Of course, it is a matter of principle the Election Commission insisted that the election in Bengal must stretch on in spite of the mutation’s deadly sweep, while the previous CEC is tipped to be the Governor of Goa as a tribute to his bureaucratic excellence. The vaccine shortage has turned inefficiently political could it be because the calculation was based on numbers instead of percentages as Dr Manmohan Singh suggested? He has been good with crises, until his own party trapped him in its crisis. Something is not politics until it is made political. The coronavirus is not interested in politics. It is only looking to commit the next murder. But that is not the real nightmare, is it? Our politicians are.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com