Breathe deep, the gathering gloom

Any pandemic is a terrifying spectre; it comes and catches you by surprise from the flanks. But a second wave? Can you be caught by surprise by the same thing a second time?
For representational purposes (Express Illustrations)
For representational purposes (Express Illustrations)

WhatsApp—individual messages and especially groups—has not been much of a feel-good place for some years now. It was just in those initial days of euphoria that it had some charm, when it helped us connect with each other like never before, across continents, across years of separation, all for free. That charm had long faded into shades of the toxic and the humdrum. But in the last few days, it has turned into something else. It brings on a shudder of trepidation like war-time sirens would at one time. It wraps you in a miasma of foreboding, a dank fog that keeps thickening. You only hear gasps for help, and almost inevitably, the news of what follows, death.

Death has never seemed so wanton, so commonplace before. Charging at you from all directions like Yama’s mount, infinitely multiplied into whole rampaging herds. Not a day goes by without being in an aspect of condolence and grief—for those close to you, ever more every day, and for those so far, to whom you feel so near … lakhs getting added to that list everyday.

There was a time when tribes and nations fought wars over land. Its modern variant has been wars over water—Cauvery being the emblematic one. We have now moved up the elemental chain. India now fights wars over air. Karnataka, a state with surplus oxygen, is refusing to pass on some to Maharashtra. Haryana won’t allow oxygen-laden trucks bound for Delhi to cross the Faridabad border. If a surreal dystopia had to shock our inured senses, what better than a scenario where our air supplies are jammed, and our lungs are screaming in despair? For something we breathed in without thinking, except when practising the pranayam or during peak pollution. We watch helplessly as the Second Coming of a mutant beast consumes fellow citizens, friends and family. It’s going up like an unearthly chant: no oxygen, no ICU bed. In city after city, state after state. And then the rituals of lament and mourning, accompanying the long march of the morbid. We are all rudaalis.

How did we come to this pass that a nation is left gasping for breath as we quibble about industrial and medical oxygen? We hear about a manifold, sudden increase of export of the industrial sort leading to an acute shortage, if that’s possible. Maybe it’s possible. Maybe it’s international hoarders trying to create an artificial scarcity in the market for air? Anything is possible these days. Anyway, our esteemed governments are directing industry heads to divert their supply to hospitals, any number of which are putting out doomsday alerts. Just five hours of oxygen left! Just two! Perhaps the sight of hospital CEOs breaking down on video because they can’t save their patients moved someone in the places that matter.

Any pandemic is a terrifying spectre; it comes and catches you by surprise from the flanks. But a second wave? Can you be caught by surprise by the same thing a second time? How come it crept upon us so silently when ambulance sirens from around the world could be heard? What were we doing? Navel-gazing? The graph plotting the rate of increase in infections looks like an Indian cobra raising its head—it’s an exponential curve, 22.94 lakh active cases as of now, with just about every new mutant of the dreaded Sars-Cov-2 freely floating around, invited to our shores. Perhaps there’s an Indian cobra or two in the mix too.

Oh, but aren’t we so democratic? It’s not just that we love our elections. Every political party wants to democratically distribute the seeds of pestilence, all over rally grounds and road shows. Since you’re all going to die anyway, might as well go to the Kumbh and book a ticket for ever-after. In 2031—if you’re still alive—will you remember who won in Sitalkuchi? Or English Bazar? Or Majuli? Or Thoothukudi? Can you imagine being forced to be engrossed in Didi vs Modi and all the rest of it till the day India started screaming from its deathbed, from footpaths outside hospitals, from pavement funeral pyres? Yes, that’s what happened in Ghaziabad. In the dead of night, PPE-clad workers burnt corpses without any ritual ado on the footpath outside the crematorium. Kinsfolk of a BJP district-level office-bearer included. In Karnataka, they officially declared the farms fringing Bengaluru as makeshift burial grounds/crematoriums.

India had to literally choke for the election carnival to stop, for any semblance of official recognition that, er … look here, we have a minor matter of a pandemic on our hands. That there were no medicines, no hospital beds, no oxygen, no vaccine even. And that people were dying like flies. But they paid heed finally. Now, the vaccine, rest assured, will be sold at a nice mark-up to states. That’s just an official variant of life-saving medicines being sold for a little profit by honest blackmarketeers. If there’s a problem, air will be imported to Atmanirbhar Bharat. Foreign oxygen.

We might need it too. Even our institutions are running short of oxygen. Look at the poor Election Commission. It fell upon the political leaders—from Rahul Gandhi to Mamata Banerjee and now Narendra Modi—to exhibit some voluntary virtue and cancel rallies. Our EC could not gather enough courage to tell them to stay put in the party office or to issue their rousing war-cries from TV studios. Instead, it had ordered silence between 7 pm and 10 am—as if the virus was a nocturnal hunter, or that it could get transmitted through sound. But yes, it’s a decree. We sit in silence, obediently, counting our dead.

Santwana Bhattacharya

Resident Editor, Karnataka,The New Indian Express

(santwana@newindianexpress.com)

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