After Amphan

The internet connection appears to have steadied after more than 48 hours and now I'm realising the extent of devastation wreaked by cyclone #Amphan. Through posts on social media and news clips.  Even though I have experienced first hand , the effect of the cyclone was comparatively much less in the locality , I stay. Mainly , because it is a very cramped up agglomeration with lanes and byelanes . There are almost no trees on the roads . The main damage here occurred to window panes, tinned roofs and signboards.  And the small flat I live in, doesn't have the luxury of too much of free space in front. 

I had taken all precautions and stocked up on essentials. So apart from a candlelit night, it was not too much of discomfort for me physically. Materially, I suffered the loss of a window pane , which actually is a big headache to get fixed now. But it was the mental part that was more affected . Such was the intensity of the cyclone. I have no shame in admitting that for about two hours, I was literally cowering with a great degree of fear. With sounds of the howling wind and falling rain interspersed with breaking of glass panes and wrenching of tin signboards and covers around , it was surely a ghastly experience to experience , cooped up all alone in a small room with a burning candle. 

I have experienced many storms in life . As a child, I lived in a house that had about six sq kms of treeless wide expanse in front of it. Even any small storm was felt quite effectively. I remember during such storms, we could actually see them approaching . Me and my sister actually played around and enjoyed those storms in the summer evenings as they meant cooler weather and invariable power cut which meant less studies. 

But for the last fifteen years , my stay in Mumbai have probably made me softer in my approach to cyclones. It rains heavily in Mumbai . But such storms never happen . In between these fifteen years, my only such experience was on 12 Dec 2016 when I was caught up at Chennai due to cyclone #Varda and had to spend the whole night at the airport like the lesser priviliged do on the railway platforms. Barring that , I had almost forgotten about cyclones and storms. 

Cyclones emanating from the Bay of Bengal are more deadly and Kolkata is always affected , but all these days it has been indirect. The cyclones would land at Andhra, Odhisha or Bangladesh primarily. Probably after many years, a cyclone with such full force had the city of Kolkata on its path. And whatever Kolkata has suffered is only half of what it could had the Sunderbans not bore the major brunt of it . I don't have any idea of wind speed or historical relevance but can only say that this was a massive one. One that we will always remember. 

It was an overcast humid day yesterday but started drizzling since last evening . When I went to bed last night the breeze was also apparent . Today woke up to moderate gusts of wind and rains. Then realised that the appointment with cyclone #Amphan was due today.  The weather has worsened by now though it’s quite pleasant temperature wise. I guess by staying indoors , I can’t gauze the problems on the streets .

But then, even in this situation of lonely lockdown blues, today seems to be a day when you feel like doing nothing. And other than waiting for the cyclone to pass over and hoping it does so without much damage, there’s little I can do.

So brewed a cup of black tea with ginger and a dash of lemon juice . While sipping it by the window , all these thoughts come to mind this morning .

Good morning and let’s hope for the best.

Chimera

The wise old man 

looked at me 

with his deep and haunting gaze

and spoke in a kind voice

happiness is not a chimera 

we have to be happy 

with what we have 

understand this clearly

we can't get everything 

that we want 

and not getting 

everything of what we want 

could be after all 

a blessing in disguise

Migrant labour

The way migrant labourers are being treated is a blot on us. The treatment meted out to them , starting from loss of livelihood , restriction of movement, leaving them stranded, segregating them as pariah, hounding them for trying to reach back home, charging them fare for journey, sanitizing them with spray of disinfectants and generally treating them as dirt is against all civilized norms of a society. More so the one which never tires to hark upon its antiquity and a glorious tradition of piety. 

If you are a believer of God, religion, sin and heaven then you are damned for not raising your voice against such atrocities. And if you do not believe in God then this is the biggest wound on your collective conscious  and haunt you for being a part of the system which is so brutally against the lowest denominator of the society.

Marx

Those who start jumping with ants in the pants syndrome at the mere mention of the name Karl Marx , are either ignorant idiots or cunning devils. They are either accessories to exploitation or want it to perpetuate by a process of mutation to safeguard their own interests. 

And those who call themselves Communists ( of various shades ) are somewhere in between. Frankly speaking, Karl Marx is the elephant which the various type of blind people calling themselves as Communist are still groping about , without realising the full shape of the object . 

What these people need is to come out of the confines of dogma and apply the Marxist theories in line with the huge technological advances made after almost one and half centuries of his demise . Society has changed, social classes have changed , the nature of exploitations have changed . These needs to be integrated and assimilated in their thought process.

But as long as people are exploited and lured by the use of material benefits , mainly money ( or wealth) , Marx will remain relevant. There is no way any power can obliterate his memory or his thoughts. Whether we subscribe to his philosophy or not , deep in our hearts we will know that he was right and remain so .

COVID - 19

As everybody knows statistics hides much more then what it reveals. This has always been the case with data. Data by itself doesn't prove or disprove anything. It is a pointer to things that may happen depending on what has happened or what is happening. 

But the presentation of data matters. And the whole subject of statistics is hinged on this. The perception of people can be shaped and altered by how data is presented. Now there is a thin line between presentation and manipulation. And, that line depends on ethical and moral premises. These are both nebulous and abstract ideas. So more often than not, we find data being manipulated to suit the interests of those who want to derive benefits from it. 

In this age of digital technology, information gathering and presentation of it has reached a high level of sophistry. Now we are bombarded with information by every second that we are awake. This has also resulted in a decrease in our attention span and the need to process a given set of information for independent analysis or interpretation. This makes the pattern of our thought process streamlined and in sync with everyone else. The pitfalls of this are the loss of originality which is the trait that differentiates humans from animals or machines. 

For example, let us take the data of Covid-19 infections that are being reported by the appropriate authorities. I am not going into the veracity or basis of the reports. But just want to point to the obvious aspect that is not being assimilated by the public but is gradually and quite mistakenly being acknowledged as a great success in our effort to contain the virus. There is in fact, a sense of apparent gloating that is displayed by various politicians, administrators, and most, unfortunately, a section of doctors too about the statistics on the spread of infection. It is being pointed out repeatedly in the media how the doubling of infected cases is being staggered by more number of days gradually. 

How much of it is due to governmental efforts is questionable on the face of it. The nature of the virus strain, its ability to mutate in Indian conditions, the effect of herd immunity of Indians due to medical and genetic history of coping with severe pandemics in the past are not being considered. But that is not all. What is not being brought to focus that shorn of the growth rate in terms of days, the actual numbers are on an increasing trend. There are no signs of the spread tapering off. 

Let's assume that today we have about 10000 cases that are doubling in twelve days. This means by the end of twelve days, we will have 20000 cases. Let's say that after 12 days the rate of doubling goes up to twenty days. This means that by the end of 32 days we will have 40000 cases.  Does it look like a success to you? Ask yourself. The rate may be whatever, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is that the number of cases have quadrupled in a month. 

What is our aim? To stall the rate of infection or eradicate it. I am not a medical specialist and I also understand that for a densely populated country like India, it will be very difficult to achieve full eradication of the infection. So, then I ask, why is this premature ejaculation of laudatory statements for? Why are we being fed with sly propaganda that things are getting better with the lockdown in force for almost 45vdays and still counting ? Why this meaningless comparison with other countries that have been ravaged by the virus. 

Don't compare it with the USA , Italy, or the UK . If you have to compare then do it with China, South Korea, and other Asian nations. Now again that type of thought process is not for ultra-nationalists or Bhakts. They are simple-minded souls who derive happiness by comparing everything with Pakistan.  

But then what can you say when educated people with Banking and financial backgrounds are trying hard to establish that write-offs of bad loans are technically different from loan waivers. And lampooning people who are trying to equate that based on the data about loan amounts written off being actually repaid. 

  

  

Relations

Neither in black 

nor in white 

the world is somewhat grey 

in this maze of masked faces 

we have to find our way 

who is an enemy 

who is a friend 

it's difficult to say by faces 

the relations that we make are shaped

by situations and circumstances 

what seems so dear today 

can prove to be a burden tomorrow 

what makes the heart 

to leap with joy 

can break it with deep sorrow 

no one deserves the blind trust 

and no body can be claimed

nothing is final or assured 

and there is no one to be blamed 

we try to find 

our own reflections 

in others whom we meet 

the matching things brings us near 

the contrasts make us retreat