Covid and India

Dear Friends,

I started this blog to post some of my musings that are triggered by events in daily life but meant to be for pure fun. I have no intention of insulting any one or hurting their sentiments. I hope the readers take it in that perspective, have a nice laugh and forget about it. I have exploited the writer's prerogative to exaggerate many things with the aim of tickling your funny bone. The first post is about Covid and India. Please read and enjoy.

Covid and India

Year 2020:
Covid-19 has come to India. It is looking for opportunities to spread. The government's directive of social distancing is posing a hurdle. Let us look at the scene from COVID-19's perspective. 

Covid looks at a couple- obviously married several years back walking on the road. The husband is walking several paces ahead while the poor wife is struggling with two bags filled with house hold items. In between his dialogue on the mobile phone, he turns back and beckons his wife to keep pace with him. The distance between them at any point of time is a few meters. The poor virus has to choose between one of them. It opts for the guy since it knows that the woman will tend to the husband definitely if unwell and the virus will have opportunity to indulge in both of them sequentially. But the reverse may or may not happen.

Then the virus sees a newly married couple. It is thrilled to see the girl clinging on to her husband as if she is afraid that he may go away with another girl. Covid -19 jumped at the opportunity of two birds at one shot.

Then Covid-19 happened to be in a bank. One look at the queue in front of the teller counter and the virus jumped with joy. There is this 60 yr old man with a big paunch that preceded him by a meter at least. He probably lost the sensation on the tummy and is not aware that he is crushing a puny little man against a burly man ahead of them. Easy jump for the virus from one to another. When it reached the burly man it had a shock of its life (viral life) to see him straining to see what the man ahead is writing on his withdrawal form and even had the temerity to correct the date he has written. 

Covid-19 then reached what looked like a cinema theatre complex. There was a mass of humanity reaching out to a single window to get a ticket to watch their favourite hero beat the vermin to pulp while the virus silently inoculated all of them in one swell of a sweep.

Covid-19 silently thanked its cousin ( Seasonal influenza virus) for all the tips it received and congratulated him (or is it her?) for the shrewd observations. 

Tip 1: There  is no concept of private space in India for individuals. In fact there is no space. It is filled with people, objects and animals. The longest distance that the virus needs to jump to reach another person is in the order of few microns ( incidentally a micron is a thousandth of a millimeter- said the wise cousin). 

Tip 2: There is no concept of waiting for one's turn. Hence there is always some one rushing from the sides of what appears to be a queue. There is also usually more than one queue leading up to the same counter- ample opportunity for lateral spread- said the Covid's cousin.

Tip 3: Many Indians have this excellent habit of bringing out the saliva ( our temporary place of residence-said the cousin) and depositing it on any surface in the vicinity. From there to change our residence is comparatively easy. If we are lucky, there are some passengers or even the drivers of big buses/trucks who directly deposit the material on unsuspecting people walking close to the vehicle- our job thereby is made even easier- said the astute cousin. Some times of course we may get caught in the reddish gutka- 'Ugh'- not the best nutrient for my sensitive stomach- said  Covid's cousin.

Nearing the end of the pandemic the Covid-19 was seen writing its memoirs to guide its cousins who were nestling in the saliva of bats and Pangolins very far away. They apparently heard of the stories of the great world beyond the great wall and are itching to find their way out.

Year 2025:

Covid-19 revisits India

Covid-19 has again been reported in several parts of the world including India. In its global journey during the pandemic and post pandemic, the virus met with many of its cousins and collected lot of tips and information about people and crowd behaviour in India. Mostly the reports have been encouraging with optimal conditions prevailing for their replication and spread. After a lull when the virus was taking a well deserved rest (after all, the virus had to work overtime to spread across the globe), it chose to revisit India and is now busy comparing the present experience with the notes made in 2020.

It was pleasantly surprised to see no change in crowd behaviour (see what the virus noted in 2020 about people, banks, cinema halls etc). If at all, the population is more closely packed (67 million people were added to the population in these 5 yrs said the well informed cousin). Correspondingly the deposition of nasal and oral secretions on the roads and walls has increased. The vaccinated people are also overconfident and do not wear masks thus providing easy access to the nasal gateway. The wise cousin informed Covid-19 that sneezers continue to sneeze without handkerchiefs against their face with good aerosol spread. 

Covid-19 and its cousins like 'large collection of people'- gives them great opportunity to make new human friends in large numbers. In Europe, they patiently wait for the 'soccer matches' while in India the annual IPL gives this opportunity. Vow, Just imagine, in 3 hours duration one has opportunity to become friends with 1 lakh people- told the cousin to Covid-19. In turn, Covid's cousin was impressed by the observation made by Covid-19 of players applying saliva on the cricket ball repeatedly. Not only is it effectively like licking the ball repeatedly, but the ball is also hit into the crowd repeatedly- a shot they call 'sixer or maximum'. Covid 19 said the whole exercise offers 'maximum' benefit for him and all cousins.

Covid-19 ended its memoirs of this visit by extolling the tremendous welcome it received with open noses/ mouths ( a la open arms), the opportunity to spread given by the large collection of people and best of all the unchanged habits of this excellent populace. Fortunately for the virus, the occasional headline news reporting cases of Covid (including deaths) are usually ignored. Covid-19 was constantly worried that the authorities may take dangerous steps such as mass vaccination with the updated Covid vaccine, impose compulsory wearing of masks in public, reinforce hand hygiene and a more rigorous monitoring by liberal Covid 19 testing as was done in 2020. The virus was of course confident that 'lock down' will never be enforced for economy reasons and 'social distancing' can never be enforced in india. And thus Covid 19 in its new visage ( having undergone multiple mutations) could stride confidently into the overconfident mass of humanity who were striving to play ' the good host' to the virus. We await a second memoirs from Covid-19 on this experience as well.