COVOD19 DAY 4 (28.3.2020)

Time seemed to be hanging heavy on my hands as the lockdown entered its fourth day. So, what does it mean for everyone? Stay in the limited space at home with your entire family, be it large or small. There is no rush in the morning to finish the breakfast as you want to be in time for office and avoid a possible brush-in with your boss or a teacher who latches the door from the inside so that you can’t enter if you are late or even those who have that interview to face. Idleness not only brings an emptiness but also a great deal of tension and irritability.

Many years ago I read in a self-help book that the most difficult thing to do in the world is structuring time. For most of us somebody else does the structuring for us. Working hours at the office, usually nine-to-five makes it easy. Get up early, reach office by nine, lunch at around one p.m. and by four-thirty we are already preparing to go home. If you live at a reasonable distance from the office, you get home between six and six-thirty. A spot of tea and then the usual television shows and news, maybe a sundowner and then dinner and bed. The routine is followed daily except the weekends. But by the time one is out of the office mood it is already black Monday. The same goes for school or college or any other profession. Perhaps the most unstructured among professions is the media in which there is no fixed time to go to or leave office.

Some people can work from home online but then imagine the person who worked in the Maruti factory that has been shut. He can’t manufacture cars from home!! So for most people its just idling. The Health Ministry, I find has come up with some suggestions in the form of a one-minute film in which psychiatrists give advice. So, the first advice is to have a routine and stay positive. More sane advice follows – minimise watching news channels and play indoor games like carrom or chess or watch films or read that storybook that you have always been meaning to but never found the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuKhtSehp24&list=PL1a9DHjZmejE-Ep2PAu2OR8HBfLP0BLIk&index=9&t=0s

Lots of people on the road with bags strapped to their shoulders making their way to their villages. One of the cleaning staff in my apartments lives belongs to Badaun but is not going back as it is too far. He lives with his wife and four children live in Noida. But he says many of his neighbours have already left. Of course, there were the videos of at the Anand Vihar bus station in Delhi. But I find that the police are now using a humane approach and were not really bothering them.

The government activity has increased on COVID19 is clear from a sharp spurt in press releases after 20^th March.

COVID19 LOCKDOWN DAY3 (27.3.2020)

Social distancing means that we all must avoid contact with others as far as possible. That has meant that people should stay at home and only go out to buy essential food and medicines only.

Like many other people, the moment the Prime Minister’s announcement of a three-week lockdown came on Tuesday night, my son and daughter rushed to the markets to buy stuff to stock up. Of course, we have stocked up enough to last out a couple of months. But what about those who are on daily wages? We saw the plight of many of them on television as many men queued up for food and many others were stopped at the border as they tried to get home.

Often, I look at the houses in the village across the road and wonder how much residents have been able to stock up. On old gentleman I called up told me that they did not have vegetables but were prepared to hole up for a couple of months surviving on whatever rice and dal they had at home. Besides, he and his wife have halved their intakes to stretch things out longer.

Last night the Health Minister came on TV and gave details of steps taken by his ministry to combat the COVID19 outbreak. I was not surprised to hear that he had moved very quickly after the first case had been identified in China and formed a group of experts as early as January 8 to make recommendations on how to minimise the impact. I had seen Dr. Harsh Vardhan in action when he was the Delhi health minister tackling the 1994 pneumonic plague and wiping out polio through pulse polio. The first case (in Kerala) was identified on January 30, according to a government release. A month later by the first week of March the number of positive cases had risen to 29, according to a statement in the Rajya Sabha by the Health Minister. But for the past few days we are being told that there is severe shortage of test kits, personal protective equipment (PPE) and even ventilators.

US President Donald Trump has to take the cake. It was only some weeks back that he had declared the COVID19 pandemic as a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats to make him lose this year’s presidential election. He even snidely called the virus the “Chinese” virus triggering off prejudice against Americans of Chinese origin. Now he has to eat humble pie as the United States seeks Chinese help as the number of cases in the US has exceeded that in China. He is more respectful of the Chinese and these days desists from calling COVID19 as the “Chinese virus”.

COVID19 LOCKDOWN DAY 2 (26.3.2020)

We are getting used to the lockdown – staying confined to our homes, not going out and stocking up and rationing food. Some shops are still open. But it could be risky visiting markets too often. People in the urban village across the street are getting restive. Some of them are playing football while others while the time on the terraces. Policemen, it seems, are taking a more human approach now following widespread complaints on the first day. Did not see a single police patrol vehicle throughout the day.

But the remarkable thing that the virus has done to humans, apart from making them sick and killing them, is to force them to bring their lives to a halt. The downside is obvious but it is not without its positives. The air for example has become much cleaner and the real colour of the sky (blue) is visible. Visibility too has improved and I can see buildings that are at least eight to 10 kilometres away. I have become more aware of birds and animals and their sounds.

One of my acquaintances, Benoy Behl, says that it is easy to understand the responsibility of human beings in destroying the habitats of bats and other animals and keeping them in conditions of “extreme stress and misery.” Animals that are used to running around or flying free are in terrible circumstances sometimes in cages one of top of another. Chicken are kept awake all the time so that they eat more and fatten quicker for our tables and are kept in crowded conditions. Their resistance to disease therefore naturally is impaired as circumstances for them are terrible and terrifying for them. They could easily become the breeding grounds for deadly viruses that we are seeing with increasing regularity in recent years.

Mr. Behl, who photographs and documents Indian art and architecture, feels that Indian philosophy holds out a positive message for the world at this juncture as we all try to figure out and tackle the calamity that seems to be overtaking us. in Indian philosophy, he says regarded all the living beings of the world as deeply united. “There is no separate compartment for animals or birds. They are all ‘jeeva’, living beings. We are helped to understand this by the concepts of our own past births in the form of different animals. Even the Buddha is seen in previous births as a buffalo, as a monkey, a boar, an elephant and so many other animals. 

“We are indeed taught to respect the dignity and emotions of all the animals and birds around us.  

I am putting a photograph of the Mahisha Jataka, in a 5^th century painting taken by Mr. Behl. Gautama Buddha is seen in a previous birth as a buffalo. The pesky monkey troubles him but the kindly bodhisattva does not mind. In fact, you will see a smile on the face of the Mahisha (buffalo).

“If we are daily guided by love in all that we do, all will be fine in this world and there will be no terrible epidemic after this one.”

Very useful advice as we are forced to rethink the way we organised our lives. In fact, it echoes the thoughts of the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, much reviled and little understood by contemporary Indians.

COVID19 LOCKDOWN DAY 1 (25.5.2020)

Having heard of lockdowns from all over the world from Kashmir to Spain, we had the first experience of it on 25^th March though with one difference – the internet had not been shut. Streets were largely deserted though unlike on earlier occasion, no one came out to bang pots and pans. Policemen on motorbikes and cars patrolled the streets threatening to beat people with sticks unless they kept indoors.

In the village next door, many people spent their curfew hours on their terraces. Long lines of clothes washing show that they have taken the advice to stay clean seriously. The guard who is at our gates lives in that village and said that many grocers’ shops were open and vegetables were also available. But most of the shops visible from our apartments were closed. A few cars, buses, trucks passed by while some of the more adventurous rode on bicycles. It was a field day for the dogs who set up a clamour at regular intervals.

In the USA meanwhile, Mr. Trump jumped from indiscretion to indiscretion as he appeared to be more interested in getting the economy started rather than in controlling the fast spreading virus that has already claimed nearly a thousand lives. One American called him a moron who is more interested in furthering his own political career than to act in a national emergency.

The dance of death marches on in Italy while matters are not much better in neighbouring Spain. Iran, France, Britain and Germany too have been hit.

CORONA HAS STRUCK!!!

A couple of weeks back I was explaining the importance of communication for development and referred to the corona pandemic. One of the students was of the opinion that it was being overhyped. I am sure he has changed his mind by now as the number of those infected by this deadly virus – Covid19 in India has crossed 600. Two weeks back Delhi and NCR were reporting its first cases. This figure has already multiplied several times.

I am touching 65 years and have never experienced anything like it in my lifetime. I was born seven years after independence and by the time I reached school deaths in large numbers were to be encountered only in history books. The most recent at that time used to be about the Bengal famine and the violent clashes that accompanied partition of India.

Of course, there were still some killer infectious diseases around like  small pox  and cholera with typhoid thrown into the mixture. School children were administered vaccines for small pox – the liquid vaccine would be put on the soft inside part of our forearms and the skin lacerated with the help of pins embedded in a small disc at the end of a steel shaft. They were usually not very painful though some people did react somewhat adversely with swollen arms and fever. The painful one was a vaccine known as TABC that was injected in the biceps.

Personally speaking, I never came across anyone suffering from any of the above infections though one could see some people with deep small pox scars. ‘Pockmark’ was the epithet used by sailors, no doubt for those of their colleagues who thad been victims of this usually deadly disease. But by the time I was heading out of school, small pox vaccinations were discontinued and we were told that the scourge had been wiped out of India.

Those had been days of the victory of the medical world over microbe and someone had even thoughtfully compiled the biographies of doctors who had developed anti-dotes for some killer pathogens. I have forgotten the name of the author but the title of the book was ‘The Microbe Hunters’ and contained the names of such pioneers and Robert Koch, Ronald Ross, Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur.

But the situation now is just a reverse of it and a microbe is threatening to overwhelm man with all his technology and ego. What perhaps is the most shocking is that its victims as of now are mostly in the world’s most industrialised countries. Usually it is the fate of poor Asians and Africans to bear the brunt of disease and death. Who ever could imagine that a country like Italy or Britain or the United States could face the wrath of the deadly pandemic with a confused response from their leaderships. If this could happen to them, what lies in store for us, is the question on the minds of many Indians.

NATION, NATIONALISM AND NATION-BUILDING AND AN EDITOR CALLED RAMANANDA CHATTERJEE

This book is all about Nation and nationalism -  words that are bandied about quite freely these days. Without much thought being devoted to the complicated concepts embodied in these words it has become the most convenient way of winning an argument simply by dismissing those that don’t agree with you as ‘anti-national’. For the past several decades governments have even coined a respectable looking term called ‘anti-national activities’ to initiate legal action against their opponents. Initially I too took these terms for granted not stopping to think what they really meant till I stumbled upon a man called Ramananda Chatterjee.

It was an intriguing meeting as it took place about 53 years after his death. This chance meeting was all the more surprising due to the fact that I was born a dozen years after Ramananda died. It is time I think that I should clear the air. The year was 1996 and I had already put in more than 13 years as a journalist and was searching for newer horizons. My wife’s uncle (Dr. Bhabani Sengupta), who was a journalist, scholar and author, came to know of my scholarly ambitions. Taking pity on my rather pathetic efforts to gain intellectual respectability he suggested that I carry out a study on ‘The Modern Review’ and its editor Ramananda Chatterjee. I knew nothing about either but based on inputs provided by Dr. Sengupta I submitted a proposal to the KK Birla Foundation which found the proposed project worthwhile and awarded me a fellowship to carry out research on the subject. Twenty-three years of study, reading, discussions and thought have resulted in the publication of a biography of a forgotten man and his journals – ‘Media and Nation-Building in Twentieth Century India: The Life and Times of Ramananda Chatterjee’.     

To tell the story of Ramananda, he brought out three journals – one each in English, Bengali and Hindi. He edited the first two himself and got Hindi scholar Benarsidas Chaturvedi to handle the third. They were named ‘The Modern Review’ (English), ‘Prabasi’ (Bengali) and ‘Vishal Bharat’ (Hindi) and their aim was to imbibe the national spirit among Indians whose self-esteem had been reduced to the negative by their British rulers. His journals carried articles on a wide range of topics of current interest and they would cover almost every aspect of life – education, history, archaeology, science, technology, sculpture, art and travel. They were topped by several pages of straightforward editorial analysis of public affairs, sometimes so straightforward that they got him into trouble with the authorities. But he carried on nonetheless and even made a commercial success of his magazines though it was modest by the standards of profits made by media houses these days.

My next entry will be on his reaction to the Jalianwalabagh incident and subsequent repression in the Punjab in 1919.
You can find a brief note on the book on the link https://www.routledge.com/Media-and-Nation-Building-in-Twentieth-Century-India-Life-and-Times-of/Chatterjee/p/book/9780367086602 

GOOGLE AS PIED PIPER

As we snaked our way in the car through villages and fields in the closing darkness I wondered, not without trepidation the power that media giant Google has begun to exercise on our lives. In the past spiritual gurus used to exercise a similar power over ordinary people who would blindly follow them in search of a direction in their lives. We too followed the directions obtained on Google Maps displayed on the smart phone on our way back to Delhi from a holiday in the hills in search of a quicker way to get home through the heavy traffic. But once we diverted from the highway I had the feeling of following some kind of a pied piper who would lead us God knows where. It could be to the right destination but it could also be to the edge of the precipice and destruction.

On the way out we had discovered a relatively clear route along the Upper Ganga Canal that had avoided the usual congested towns. On the way back too, therefore, we were keen to take the same way back so that we got home well in time for the early dinner. God (and Google) had other plans for us. We found the Canal after a brief stopover at Khatauli but about 25 to 30 kilometres down the road we got stuck in a traffic pile-up. It was here that Google Maps kicked in showing us an alternative route. Dusk was closing in but trusting Google, as if it was like the good old spiritual gurus of the past, we got off the main highway on to the narrow village lanes and bye-lanes, sometimes paved with either bricks or tiles and sometimes just mud tracks, meant for bullock carts and tractors not highway traffic.

Startled men, women, children and cattle made way, not just for us but for dozens of other cars that had taken the same detour to get past the pile-up. It became obvious that they too had put their travelling fates in the hands of Google Maps. My daughter was reading the maps and directing her brother who was at the wheel as we bumped along through the darkness apparently in the middle of nowhere. The only comfort that we were on the right way was the row of headlights and tail-lights in front and behind. Like us there were many who apparently following Google Maps religiously. We became aware of the many hazards of the unknown path that Google Maps had opened for us as we saw one car pull up on the side to change a flat tyre – flattened no doubt by the jagged stones. In one place we honked our way past a marriage procession while in another we were held up for a short while as a posse of policemen conducted a raid on public drinkers. In fact, I wondered whether Google has ever thought about the large number of people it inconveniences in its quest for information and more information about the way that people travel in India. These lanes and bye-lanes were certainly not meant for highway traffic.

Eventually we did get on to the national highway but not before getting stuck in another pile-up but this time purely the creation of Google Maps who had led a whole legion of holiday travellers into it through their smart phones. We got back just before midnight though Google had promised that at the outside it would be just 8 p.m. Life was much simpler in an age gone by when we would just trust our own instincts and the reassuring physical landmarks to get our bearings. In any case if you got lost you could always find a helpful shopkeeper or passer-by to put you back on the right track. But there was fun and adventure even in getting lost as one discovered the unexpected. These days the virtual world of the smart phones appear to be more real than the real one around us.