COVID lockdown opens up new vistas to analyze our own stupidity

 

I was rather surprised to read that mankind put a man on the moon before putting wheels on luggage. As a child it was very cumbersome for me to carry my own luggage and sometimes those of grandparents but the thought never crossed my mind that luggage could have wheels. It was only in my teens that I saw a wheeled suitcase for the first time, it was insanely expensive of course since it was an imported item. Now of course everybody seems to have one. It seems so cruel that we had to carry so many useless things back then now even laptops have wheeled cases. When I look around there are so many stupid things we are doing that we should not be doing and I began to notice these only after we were snowed in during COVID lockdowns. None of our house hold workers have been allowed inside since march this year as we have senior citizens in the family who cannot be put to any kind of risk. I have been playing the role of gardener, janitor, cook, priest in addition to what I did in pre COVID times and yes plumber and oh wait electrician too! I have noticed a lot many stupid things we are wasting time and energy on since thousands of years. One very stupid thing that stands out by being singularly disgusting is cleaning of shower drains. This is something we cannot avoid doing because the kaamwali bai is not around anymore and perhaps for some more months to come. Luckily  we have only one toilet with shower. I cannot describe how disgusting it is to do the job of cleaning the drain. I cry to high heavens why oh why could not mankind discover something to totally avoid doing this most disgusting chore. I have a feeling our basic shower drain design is at least three thousand years old! A more problematic drain is the one on the terrace, not the normal terrace it is the terrace that you cannot reach. In India for some strange reason there is always a terrace without any staircase and there is always a drain there which gets choked by dry leaves and when it rains: the terrace is flooded and there is no way you can reach it.

Necessity is the mother of invention but disgust is the midwife! I spent a month thinking day and night about a way to cut down on my visits to the shower drain and bingo I was able to put together something that cut down my visits by ninety percent. My research still going on but maybe I will give it up when house help returns. Moral of the story is we are doing so many things wrong. Here I am reminded of another of my roles, that of a priest. We have an ancestral temple and with other stake holders out of town and the priest or pujari not being allowed in I was the only one left to do the needful.  I noticed that not only was dhoop burning a tedious task but in fact the mixture was made of toxic substances, ideally one should be burning a mixture of dried herbs and incenses like guggul. This is a tedious process because contrary to what you might think starting a fire without LPG gas stove is not a joke. I googled for online stores selling something that allowed easy and slow burning of guggul and other incenses but there was practically nothing. So I am working on this one too a kind of small stove very small but will have to invent charcoal too for it because normal charcoal chunks cannot be burnt in a miniature angithi.

Lastly the brooms that we use in India, they are too short and too loosely tied. Yes I know there are modern things in stores for cleaning but for dry sweeping one still has to fall back on the good old or should I say bad old broom. I have had excruciating backaches from bending to do the brooming thing in the ancestral temple. There are so many things around us that we are doing wrong hope in a post COVID world we would have fixed a lot of them. I for one am going after the drain design with a vengeance.

Nadir of democracy

 

“…in which, not the law, but the multitude, have the supreme power, and supersede the law by their decrees. … The demagogues make the decrees of the people override the laws, and refer all things to the popular assembly. And therefore they grow great, because the people have all things in their hands, and they hold in their hands the votes of the people, who are too ready to listen to them.”

Can you guess when and who wrote that and about what? Well! These were written about two thousand three hundred and fifty years back by Aristotle about what in simple language can be called extreme democracy. The sheen of democracy is certainly fading. I have always believed that Lincoln was a dreamer and like a normal person who believes the whole world consists of people like him he made an emotional comment about democracy which we all read about in school or college and which is absolutely false because democracy has never been like Lincoln described or wanted it to be. In India supposedly the largest democracy in the world in fact in history, there is little democracy on the ground or perhaps too much of the same but most certainly it has failed to live up to the high ideals of so called fathers of democracy like Lincoln. From its inception democracy in India has been plagued by nepotism, elitism, regionalism, communalism, casteism and well so many fatal flaws.

It seems that worldwide the demons, the anti social elements have started to take unfair advantage of the gentle and intrinsic pro social elements of democracy to bring about unforeseen and uncontrollable devastation. Two incidents come to mind regarding the aforementioned first the anti CAA riots and the second the BLM riots. Going back to what Aristotle said and one can find the same exemplified in the two incidents, democracy has been reduced to a mockery by demagogues. These demagogues need not be in power, it is enough that they are able to brainwash and mobilise large sections of people and make them believe in lies. In case of anti CAA demonstrations cum riots in India the law that people were demonstrating against was very simple though what was the intent behind it may be disputed; the law did not at all concern Muslims in India, it was simply enacted to enable large number of stateless, poor, defenceless and persecuted Hindus living illegally in India to become citizens of India. I say again with what intent such a law was enacted can be a matter of discussion but my primary concern is that a democratic set up in India allowed a very violent series of events in which a lot of people were hurt by brainwashed mobs who trusted their leaders fully without bothering even once to check the facts. This is the nadir of democracy and in Delhi made more evident by sweeping victory of a candidate exclusively on basis of religion who later played a significant part in aforementioned demonstrations.

BLM riots are no different and they too seem to point to the fact that we have reached the nadir of democracy. While I believe that so called ‘blacks’ must be given a lot of concessions in US particularly because they did not go to that country of their own free will but their ancestors were dragged in chains on slave ships away from their homeland in Africa: at the same time conditions in the US at least to a distant observer like me look much better for them than in Africa of today. It would be crazy for anyone to say that democracy does not work in US. I think it overworks in US! One of the differences between BLM riots and anti CAA riots in India is that the latter were suppressed effectively by India, I say effectively and not brutally because considering India’s past the government has been remarkably muted in its response at least initially. In the US however riots are still going on and with much more ferocity than in India. There seems to be too much democracy in the US for government to effectively curb the criminals who want to burn the country that gave them everything, to the ground.

Mass media and democracy are intertwined in our times and where democracy is vibrant mass media too has more freedom: however mass media has a fundamental flaw it too depends upon numbers like politicians in a democracy. In a post truth world mass media has tossed truth into the sea and with lots of media houses taking money from politicians or their minions or owned directly by politicians or businessmen this is something which is going to get worse. It seems mass media will give democracy the final push that will make it reach its true nadir. I am chuckling to myself as I mention the two words mass media and truth in the same sentence; the two words are now more like two poles of earth they can never be together anymore!

What is the way forward; I was tempted to say I don’t know but I think I do know a little bit – the way forward seems to be a digital government, some kind of software or artificial intelligence – don’t laugh! Even in a poor country like India and in its poorest state Uttar Pradesh it has started although in a very ‘primitive’ manner and by, hold your breath a monk in robes! I personally feel like Victor Hugo who said ‘...not even the most powerful armies can stop an idea whose time has come’ this is the future it seems for in the last three thousand years most heads of state and their courtiers  have largely failed the people worldwide and democracy too seems to have hit the nadir.

Precautions that I have been taking to prevent Coronavirus infections

Coronavirus infection can prove to be devastating not only for health but for economic well being of the whole family. I have been a medical college student so understand just a bit more than a common person about viruses and viral diseases. I am outlining some of the important points regarding coronavirus infection.

Virus what is it?
A virus is a bundle of chemical in a protein and an outermost lipid or fat coat. A virus is non-living so you cannot kill it. A virus is harmless as long as kept away from human cells. The moment a virus enters a human cell it becomes active. The moment an infected human being moves virus also moves otherwise the virus is stationary.

How can I be safe from a COVID infection?
You can be totally safe from COVID infection if you stay indoors and do not allow anyone to enter your home. Anyone means anyone friends or relatives included. No servants no courier boys nothing; however it is not possible so I am outlining what I do to protect myself from Coronavirus infection.

I do not go out!
I try my best not to go out except for very urgent work! At present the only urgent work that requires my going out is buying medicines for parents and getting milk, bread, butter etc.

For getting milk, butter, breads etc. I buy in bulk. I buy so much stuff that I do not have to go out for at least four days. I write down what I require on a piece of paper very clearly and in big letters and I hand it over to the milk booth guy and then I move backwards all the time wearing an N95 mask, clear glasses covering my eyes and a cap. I also handover a cloth bag to the guy. He keeps all the stuff in the bag and writes the total on the paper, I hand him over the money trying my best not to talk. If you do not talk and the other person also does not talk there is very little possibility of airborne infection and vice versa.
I get home and wash all the stuff in detergent mixed virus making sure I wash my hands afterwards.
For bread packets I carefully open them using a razor and drop all the bread onto a dish without it touching outside of the packet ditto with butter.

For medicines I repeat the above procedure except that for sanitizing them I use an empty Colin sprayer filled with dishwash liquid and water. I spray on the outside of all medicine bottles and blister packs and keep them away for at least 24 hours.

For fruits and vegetable I wash them in a tub with a very dilute solution of dishwash liquid and then remove the dishwash liquid under direct running water making sure that they remain under running water for a long time. I never use hot water that will spoil the fruits and vegetables rightaway. I do not go out to buy them instead I phone up the sabziwala and he dumps all the stuff near my entrance and shouts to me the calculation and I drop the money to him from the first floor making sure he gets a tip too. I talk to him very lovingly otherwise it would not be easy for him to put up with such behaviour but he understands all this.

For groceries I have stopped going out and instead order from amazon pantry or grofers both of which have been very good so far. Both online services have saved me a lot of visits to the market and their delivery is mostly flawless. For this type of delivery I have put one old kitchen dish-stand near the gate, amazon or grofers delivery person phones me up and I tell him to deposit the package on this stand. Afterwards I empty all contents of various packs in clean containers or dishes as the case may be. If there is a second factory sealed pack inside I keep that as it is. I make sure all packaging is thrown away and never enters my home.

If at all I have to buy some groceries I take a list of all items on a paper and then I move out of the house. I never speak to the person at the grocery store as far as possible and I only speak to a servant who wears a mask. Sometimes I tell the person to put on a mask too and so far no one has objected to that. You have to forget about politeness a little bit in these things and must demand that the other person put on a mask.

I never order from online services of cooked food as I just cannot take a chance with that. I have not eaten a sweet since three months now but that is ok with me, neither a cake nor pastry.

Once I get home the first thing I do is remove my footwear outside my flat door and put on new footwear, then I wash my hands and after that I remove my mask, glasses and cap and head straight to take a bath making sure I wash my hair everytime I go out.

Latest update is that after so called unlock whenever I go out to shop I see people without masks, problem is how to cope with this; the answer to that question is face shields. I bought two kinds of face shields one that is just a thick polythene with an elastic band and one that is a polycarbonate glass shield. The polycarbonate has its own use but the thick polythene sheet is more effective. I always wear that when going out to shop for vegetables and feel a lot safer. Only mask is not enough now.

I hope my experience helps others and if you have any questions please ask using comments section.

Digital copy of my historical novel Recalcitrance based on events of 1857 in Lucknow

I welcome all those interested in historical novels and the city of Lucknow.

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