When the lockdown had begun in March, one of the most important
things that Governments around the world had taken special emphasis on was to
maintain social distance among the public. Of course, with no vaccines or
proven drugs to combat the ailment in sight, ‘social distancing’ was
and even continues to be our best bet to fight this pandemic.
At that moment of crisis, when various thoughts were crossing my mind, as I am sure had been the case with a lot of you, one thought in particular was what if we face a severe calamity, like an earthquake or a storm, may be. What will the already hapless people do? Already they have been subjected to so much of confusion and chaos. I was counting the days and thanking the God in my silent prayers that indeed He had at least saved us from that kind of a torrid situation. Yes, the migrant labourers’ crisis had still not occurred then.
Little did I know that on May 20th, I would be typing this down at around 10 in the night, trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation at this moment. We are already through with three sets of lockdowns, but still we are encountering with record number of COVID-19 infected patients every other day. Now under the Lockdown 4.0, with plenty of relaxations already in place, people have begun to step out of their homes. Thus, there are visibly more people on the roads, which consequently means there are more chances of the infection spreading further. So we were in a bit of doldrums already.
May 20th, 2020: Add to that the mayhem called Amphan. The thought that I had had in the beginning of this lockdown, about which I had written earlier in my post was just materialised and made alive by this monster from the Bay of Bengal.
Flashback to last weekend: I was just going through the headlines from the online version of a local Bengali daily when I had come to know of this thing called Amphan, which was said to be heading towards the Bengal-Odisha coast. The sheer strength of the cyclone was highlighted and that surely had made it into a cause of concern for the entire nation. Amidst the entire fiasco of maintaining social distancing while the lockdown is still on, the Government had to undertake an evacuation program to vacate all the districts which were in line for the hit by the storm. During this past couple of days, newspaper reports have been very active telling about such evacuation activities being undertaken in Bengal and Odisha. People have been relocated, keeping in mind all the social distancing norms. This is a great challenge, in front of the Government, one in which it cannot put its guard down, even for a minute.
Jump back to today, Wednesday. The sky was grumpy from the morning. As the day progressed, things worsened quite fast and by afternoon, the winds had started to gather steam. With it began incessant rain, which also picked up real vigour. Landfall happened at almost the exact time and place, as had been earlier predicted. Though I could manage to continue working for the better part of the day, thanks to my internet and power holding their way, but after evening, both of those suddenly gave way and we were engulfed in darkness, making my work short for the day (not complaining though).
It is then when I started to frame this post. And suddenly, this made me feel how merciless has Mother Nature been this year. Well, though the origin of the coronavirus is highly debated, the official verdict still stands out to claim that it is a natural virus. Even the staunchest of the anti-Chinese claims make the virus to be a naturally occurring virus, cultured in a lab in Wuhan. I won’t go into much details, without further proof. But as it still stands, the virus is naturally occurring. The way it has spread between the human beings is natural (though its alleged leak from the lab might not have been). It has already made itself a game changer in the entire path of the human race. The impact of the virus is in front of everybody to see. So won’t really delve into it much deeper.
When my nation was already under immense pressure in its fight against this virus, suddenly comes in Amphan. With this enormous evacuation process that has been undertaken, I just feel for the people who have been relocated. Just hope that all the social distancing norms and the necessary hygiene would be followed at their relocated places, to ensure that during this evacuation, they don’t start facing the menace of the Coronavirus. A humble request to the Central and State Governments to ensure that this be looked upon. Otherwise this might really lead into another big tragedy, something for which we are really not prepared for.
At that moment of crisis, when various thoughts were crossing my mind, as I am sure had been the case with a lot of you, one thought in particular was what if we face a severe calamity, like an earthquake or a storm, may be. What will the already hapless people do? Already they have been subjected to so much of confusion and chaos. I was counting the days and thanking the God in my silent prayers that indeed He had at least saved us from that kind of a torrid situation. Yes, the migrant labourers’ crisis had still not occurred then.
Little did I know that on May 20th, I would be typing this down at around 10 in the night, trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation at this moment. We are already through with three sets of lockdowns, but still we are encountering with record number of COVID-19 infected patients every other day. Now under the Lockdown 4.0, with plenty of relaxations already in place, people have begun to step out of their homes. Thus, there are visibly more people on the roads, which consequently means there are more chances of the infection spreading further. So we were in a bit of doldrums already.
May 20th, 2020: Add to that the mayhem called Amphan. The thought that I had had in the beginning of this lockdown, about which I had written earlier in my post was just materialised and made alive by this monster from the Bay of Bengal.
Flashback to last weekend: I was just going through the headlines from the online version of a local Bengali daily when I had come to know of this thing called Amphan, which was said to be heading towards the Bengal-Odisha coast. The sheer strength of the cyclone was highlighted and that surely had made it into a cause of concern for the entire nation. Amidst the entire fiasco of maintaining social distancing while the lockdown is still on, the Government had to undertake an evacuation program to vacate all the districts which were in line for the hit by the storm. During this past couple of days, newspaper reports have been very active telling about such evacuation activities being undertaken in Bengal and Odisha. People have been relocated, keeping in mind all the social distancing norms. This is a great challenge, in front of the Government, one in which it cannot put its guard down, even for a minute.
Jump back to today, Wednesday. The sky was grumpy from the morning. As the day progressed, things worsened quite fast and by afternoon, the winds had started to gather steam. With it began incessant rain, which also picked up real vigour. Landfall happened at almost the exact time and place, as had been earlier predicted. Though I could manage to continue working for the better part of the day, thanks to my internet and power holding their way, but after evening, both of those suddenly gave way and we were engulfed in darkness, making my work short for the day (not complaining though).
It is then when I started to frame this post. And suddenly, this made me feel how merciless has Mother Nature been this year. Well, though the origin of the coronavirus is highly debated, the official verdict still stands out to claim that it is a natural virus. Even the staunchest of the anti-Chinese claims make the virus to be a naturally occurring virus, cultured in a lab in Wuhan. I won’t go into much details, without further proof. But as it still stands, the virus is naturally occurring. The way it has spread between the human beings is natural (though its alleged leak from the lab might not have been). It has already made itself a game changer in the entire path of the human race. The impact of the virus is in front of everybody to see. So won’t really delve into it much deeper.
When my nation was already under immense pressure in its fight against this virus, suddenly comes in Amphan. With this enormous evacuation process that has been undertaken, I just feel for the people who have been relocated. Just hope that all the social distancing norms and the necessary hygiene would be followed at their relocated places, to ensure that during this evacuation, they don’t start facing the menace of the Coronavirus. A humble request to the Central and State Governments to ensure that this be looked upon. Otherwise this might really lead into another big tragedy, something for which we are really not prepared for.
I would conclude by picking something I
had written earlier in my post about the silent token of thanks which I had
sent for the Almighty, earlier when the lockdown had been in place, as there
were apparently no cases of natural calamities. But tonight, with Amphan raging
in my state and throwing my country off balance from her fight against
COVID-19, I’m sorry I can’t say the same for the Almighty. You have let us down,
you really have! I am sorry, but that’s the truth! Hope we can tackle this and
come out of this as well. But we are on our own. The help for which people pray
sadly hasn’t arrived and by the look of things, won’t arrive, unfortunately.
No comments:
Post a Comment