Category: Coronavirus

OPINION|The Goodliness of Godliness

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Faith, opinion, pandemic, theGuardian, TheNewYorkTimesLeave a comment

The Covid “Whys and Wherefores”

I, like 70% of the planet’s human population, have been sitting in the now very, very, very familiar environs of my home for the past 6 weeks. Please note that the last very is purely a function of the extreme intimacy with ones personal spaces nurtured by pandemics and possibly, global wars. Thankfully most of us haven’t seen the latter, but from the word on Nostalgia Street*, even those were more sociably congenial times than the ones we’re currently living in.

That being so, we’re also now constantly bombarded with news, views and opinions and a fair bit of media-propelled propaganda, persuasion and proselytism. The opportunity to step back and take stock in this information-gorged environment is becoming as difficult as it is necessary. The 21st century version of Orwell’s Newspeak* is unfolding in eerie global concordance as we parrot phrases, speculations and judgements with an unusual homogenous fervour and abandon. The Herd Mentality has unfortunately struck much earlier than any much sought after Herd Immunity as we navigate through the confounding dominion of the Mighty Microbes.

The above is meant to give some background to my subsequent Blog op-ed below:

On the face of it, the current “dithering” of the Pakistani government on the issue of permitting Ramzan-related en-mass worship seems lacking in political guts, glory and everything in between. (In fact, it comes across as a shameless pandering to the religio-political factions which have over the years dug their prayer-calloused heels quite deeply into the statutory landscape of the country). And that may be so in the clinical versions of democracy and statesmanship. But the political landscapes of the middle and low income nations can’t be fitted into constitutional ideologies created by the First World. The cultural, social and religious fundamentals are so complex and unique to each country, that painting them with the “magic” brush of western democratic ideals is hardly astute or effective state stewardship.

Pakistan has the dubious advantage of having one of the youngest populations globally (barring some African countries). Over 30% of the 230 million people are under the age of 15; and the average Pakistani is under 25 years old. We know that the best immunity to be had is the one that we develop while doing a brisk Attan* with the pathogen. We also know that it will be at least a year before the second-best option of a vaccine will see the light of day. We know too that neither our economy nor our national infrastructure is evolved enough to tide the republic through a long-standing/ indefinite lockdown.

We then, are in the dubiously optimal position to relax the ‘Stay at Home’ regimen, crank up the rusty engines as they are, of local industry and begin our lives Concurrent to Covid. Chances are that the herd immunity will kick in by the time the next wave of the virus washes up on our shores and we should be better placed to fight the invisible enemy – mostly Immunity wise, because expecting commercially, socially or religiously advanced miracles of our slap-dash citizenry is like expecting the cow to actually jump over the moon. There will be some losses and all lives are precious ….so the First world fairytale goes. But the biting reality is that far more of those precious lives will be lost through starvation, avoidable illnesses, elevated crime, lingering civil strife and other disturbing consequences of putting the lockdown spanner in the national works.

Which brings me to my ambiguous role as a spokesperson of the devout:

While the very spirit of this stubbornness to worship congregationally, reeks of selfishness and non communal fervour in every way, it is also that trademark cantankerous endeavour at keeping the civic energy buzzing which is the critical element. Maybe this time, our self-serving religiosity is being endorsed by the universe itself for the salubrious irony inherent in the devotedness. Maybe it is one of those rare occasions warranting madness that may some day…later this year in fact, with round two of the virus, be touted as a modern day religious miracle: God will have been front and centre of our Ramzan ardour as our biology too, triumphs; and we exponentially build immunity towards a more robust future. Inshallah!

De khudai pe aman.

*Nostalgia Street: tales of yore/ anecdotal blasts from the past

*Newspeak: propagandist language that is based on discouraging free/ independent thought through reduction in the nuance and ambiguity inherent in the language

*Attan: a folk dance indigenous to Afghanistan and northern Pakistan

PANDEMIC 2020|Home sweet Hom(age)

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Mighty Microbes, pandemic2 Comments

Of Garlic presses, Firestarters and the BBC

Starting with a cliche isn’t usually one of my proudest writing moments, but i’m employing the poetic/ prose license bestowed on all of us by these downright bizarre times. While it would seem almost counter-intuitive to wax eloquent on any kind of ‘home-boundedness’ at this juncture in our various mass lockdown and curfew situations, it is also a good time to cogitate on what makes the home so sweet. In fact, if I didn’t put some pixels behind the cause, I would probably undo a whole lot of the arduously achieved homestead allurement in a flash of claustrophobic bluster.

So here is my tribute to the delightfulness of my abode (albeit currently surrounding me unremittingly, endlessly, ceaselessly, 24 hours, non stop!)

My plants: The genial collection of flora in my balcony that brightens my day straight up. It’s like having some green friends over who have over time, set down roots at your place and have decided to stay for as long as you’ll have them. Some of the more enthusiastic boarders may encroach on your hospitality and bring along a few dozen other weedy friends to their fertile bedchambers off and on. Even so, the happy floral assemblage outside my window never grows old. Bless them!

My Corridor: The 30 foot corridor (from the lounge to the kitchen) has saved me more than once, from enacting Stephen King’s Firestarter* routine. Every occasion I feel the cabin fever setting in and the heebie jeebies creeping up on me, I put on my sneakers and kick-off on what i call my “20 Minute Corridor Constitutional”. The mental and emotional stress-release is phenomenal, not to mention the vast numbers I end up adding to my daily step count. There have been curfew-bound days when I’ve averaged 22,000 steps just from my corridor walkabouts. Needless to say, those were also the days I almost gnashed my teeth to the gums, uttered a lot of pandemic invective and played nervously with my well worn box of matches…..

(An affectionate cheer to my Dad here, who introduced me to these indoor perambulations as the healthful aftermaths to a fulsome meal. Thank you Dad!)

My kitchen: The heretofore dubious capital investment in my home. I’ll just put it out there: never had the inclination nor the interest to cook up a storm or even a mere waft of a breezy hours de oeuvre or two. I have relied on the cooking graces of others – both at home and outside- to nourish me. So it is with a peculiar and rather hesitant delight that I have discovered the magic of the hob, the relish of shallow frying, the perfection of silicon egg poachers and the satisfying sharpness of a kitchen knife. No, no… halt that imagination forthwith if you please! The knife has gone straight for the heart of the vegetable or fruit I’m attacking, thank you. The macabre, keen-edged shenanigans I shall leave to the crime writers who are probably blowing off some dubious steam of their own these days! I quite like my kitchen now and have even added a garlic press to my list of things to buy post-pandemic; no store bought garlic paste for this kitchen adventurer! When in a pandemic, go the whole nine yards. It’s a great lockdown time-batterer.

My 6 bottles of wine: I’m glad they were there when the psyche was engaged in bloody battle with the curfew. They’re all gone now. ’nuff said.

My telly: Together with my first cup of tea of a pandemic morning, the caffeine hit is not quite complete without a dose of Doctor S. Gupta, David Eades and Christiane Amanpour, and of course a trademark Trump sound byte. As I’ve been raising the bar on my Pandemic self actualisation scale, I have also begun to reduce my News addiction, and have actually watched a fair bit of Netflix. My profound cinematic conclusion: Stand-up comedy routines are chicken soup for the Curfew-bound soul!

Other digital media: My WhatsApp and weblog connections with my near and dear ones have helped to keep the heart intact in all this mayhem. No matter where each one of us is, we know we’re just a meme, a joke, a💋 , a 🤗 and a 📞-call away from one another. Let’s keep rocking it my lovelies!

And so, it was on a Wednesday afternoon or was it a Thursday….. ? Which brings me to another realisation: There are no real days of the week in a pandemic, as one day seamlessly merges into the next. And so, it was on a Pandesday** that i sat back and took stock of my home and all the joy it still brings me when the world outside seems alien, blighted and frightening.

Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling – of security, comfort and serenity. And this is my homage to the whole gamut of protecting, sheltering homes and home-makers across the planet.

De Khudai pe aman.

*Firestarter: A 1980 Stephen King novel about a lass who was an accomplished arsonist in the tradition of most reviled, ostracised anti heroes

**Pandesday: any day in the course of the novel Corona virus pandemic

PANDEMIC 2020|The Journey to Calmness

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Humanity, Mighty Microbes, pandemic3 Comments

Acceptance, Grace and Tranquility

It’s been tragic, arduous, bizarre and even downright dull in the wake of the Bacillus Extremis. It’s been stressful and emotionally draining. The novel Corona, in all its microscopic might, has turned the world as we knew it, radically upside down and even inside out. It’s left many of us wondering if life as we knew it, is an epoch now past and if we are indeed on the threshold of a new kind of world. An existence underscored by a uniquely new approach to community, sociability and even intimacy with our loved ones outside of our nuclear families. The anticipation of what is to come is tremulous with disquietude. Glimmers of hope are rare and are constantly shrouded by the ever-burgeoning core of this malaise we are calling the novel Corona.

I have over the long, sometimes interminable hours of the last month had ample opportunity to think, remonstrate, deflect, clamour, feud, conjecture and concede. Most times, with myself; sometimes with the screen of my LG television and also via a few unpropitious encounters with near and dear ones. Like many out there, i went through the whole gamut of emotions experienced in the aftermath of a trauma. The degree varied but the angst was much the same and it took the whole experiential sequence for me to attain my post-Covid calm and the almost existential approbatio* of whatever will be will be. Here’s my journey:

  • Shock and bewilderment – just as i was ready to come out of corporate hibernation and re-enter some semblance of a working environment, WFH* becomes the new standard. So it was back to a sketchy hibernation much like a wide awake, ready-for-a-big-fat-spring-meal bear who has blundered out in a blustery January.
  • Hypervigilance about the future – a zombie apocalypse was bound to follow and the only skill i could bring to the “Walking Dead” In Situ was an uncanny ability to multitask and a canny capacity to write farce…. facts, pithy historical facts…. who am i kidding, Farce with, I’m hoping, a bit of heart.
  • Intense anger and irritability – the cabin fever coincided very nicely with the PMS peevishness, so the beloved familial circle was hardly the wiser. They all took the usual ‘shelter in place’ when the spillways of tetchiness and petulance sent forth their monthly rush of acidity.
  • Sadness and depression – the biggest contributor here was the woeful lack of my mid morning caffeine ‘jostle’, imbibed in the form of a very anaemic latte in the wistfully clammy, alfresco environs of my neighbourhood bistro and wine bar. The atmospheric withdrawal has been excruciating…. “Oh Sugar! Honey honey! You are my candy girl and you’ve got me wanting you!”
  • Apathy and emotional numbness: This phase consisted entirely of tremendously long hours spent tuned into the CNN, the BBC and Aljazeera. I watched these unblinkingly, unemotionally, waiting for the penny to drop. At their end. For the media parody to finally end so i could go back to buying lacteous lattes and sipping them pensively while i waited for epiphanous writing plots to excitingly unravel.
  • Recurring nightmares – Saturnine, spine chilling horrors. I dreamt of being chased by the spectral detritus of every spider and gecko I’d ever cursed or quelled in my life – may the universe keep the arachnid and reptilian populations in its blessed, all encompassing (read: inescapable) embrace. It was terrifying and worse than any human zombie herd, bearing down on me with its gnashing assortment of acid-corroded teeth.
  • Acceptance – And then the essential provisions/ food trucks started coming with a reassuring frequency so we knew with a measure of confidence that we weren’t going to starve anytime soon. In their nutritive wake, we also got the bearers of big and little treats like ice cream, cheese, cold meats and cakes. And that’s when the tide turned on all the under-the-breath utterances from across the spectrum of condominium dwelling humanity. The “Myth of the Super Luxury condos” was in the happy throes of being nullified, debunked, annihilated- at least in this episode of Man vs. Corona. The Myth of Super-Luxury Condominiums – Part Deux; The myth of “Super Luxury” condominiums
  • Moving on – Many of us have harnessed our new reality and even temerity of our existence and moved on the best we can. Some have embarked on halting but brave attempts at reviving a hobby or honing an aspirational skill; others have revisited their approach to health with new fervour; still others are taking the time to unwind, meditate, introspect and heal. While we make our individual post-Covid journeys of renewal and self discovery, we have, as a species, also stepped back so that our battered planet can recover, revive and renew.

I leave you with the below lines from Carl Sagan:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam“.

De Khudai pe aman.

*Approbatio: Latin for approving, assenting, acceptance

**WFH: Working From Home

PANDEMIC 2020|Hairy Adventures – Part deux

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Mighty Microbes, pandemic, Stayhomefor2 Comments

Pandemic Special

It’s been just short of a month since the current curfew conditions were imposed in our city, and quite a lot longer in some other metropolises. And while the world at large has been preoccupied with the more immediate imperative of procuring food and other essential provisions, nature has been gleefully taking its regular course on all other fronts. Including the Follicular.

Three weeks on, and one can finally look in the mirror and know for a fact that what folks see of you now is what they actually get- an abundance of character, a pretty robust immunity (you’re still around aren’t you!) and of course the extra kg or so of all sorts of hirsute proliferation. This may include the heretofore publicly unseen unibrow, now quivering with health in its full horizontal entirety; and maybe also a quite robust moustache, that you last encountered when you were 14 and were still fast friends with all hair-related outcroppings. And of course the resilient growth on the arms and legs- a veritable extra canopy against the clammily bracing tropical breezes. Needless to say, many an air-conditioning thermostat has been adjusted to account for the extra covering, worn per force.

With the curfew now onerously plodding into its fourth week, the thin stores of razors and depilatories have also probably become nostalgic Ghosts of Hairlessness Past. And The more genteel amongst us are now probably spending more than a few of our locked-down hours thinking up ways of “taming the beast” before heading out for a session with Tania at Waxworks …. whenever that might be! The more constructively intrepid may even share a digital pearl of homegrown wisdom on the subject. So, together with updates on visiting food trucks, a social media hawkeye on this aspect may be of vast benefit to some….. many… who am i kidding, all of us!

In the meantime, the other denominator- the salon staff, are clocking their own glabrous countdowns to the time when they can alter the current Corona trend of Grisly Ladies who Lunch- in solitary. Needless to say, the urge to pluck, yank and depilate is intense across the entire salon confluence. I for one, got a lovely message from my resident spa wizard asking about my general well being. I told her that I missed her and that I was now quite definitely looking like Snow White’s wicked stepmother sans her magic (read: beautifying!!) wand. The hair was growing inelegantly grey and the eyebrows looked like 2 very, very distantly related cousins, in the aftermath of some personal endeavours in that area. In summary, I was not only suffering from cabin fever after all this home boundedness, but was with every passing day, looking more and more like I’d stepped out of the Neanderthal display in a natural history museum. She was delighted!

The age of the Corona is obviously teaching us more than just patience, forebearance and humility. It is also adjusting (correcting?) our socially conditioned sense of self as more and more, we’re letting it “all hang out”. Our partners too, are hesitantly/ puzzlingly/ apprehensively (depending on how much of a real life filter you had going on for yourself!) getting used to the peremptory au naturale trend of 2020.

The runways in 2021 will be interesting to watch. Nameless/ faceless models, with on-point face masks and matching all season gloves, teaching us elegant ways of walking 6 feet apart from one another. The post-Covid ramps will offer little occasion to portray beauty that is only skin-deep; picture perfect, surgically enhanced features will seem irrelevant and ephemeral after the corporeity of the previous year. It’ll probably spawn a whole new return to basics with a more authentic medley of wellness, beauty and form.

That will imaginably be a CSL – a Corona Silver Lining.

Hairy adventures

De Khudai pe aman.

PANDEMIC 2020|The Importance of being Gracious

On By Mahvash K. M.In A desi in Colombo, Coronavirus, Mighty Microbes, Rant!, The harangue1 Comment

(Quite as Important as being Earnest)

These are strange, even somewhat chilling times as we navigate through a viral storm of unprecedented proportions.

We have all been constrained to significantly modify our lives as we traverse the largely uncharteted waters of interminably extended curfews and lockdowns. Where the regular hustle and bustle of life as we’ve known it, has changed drastically to not only embrace a new kind of solitary social ideology but also how we go about procuring our daily provisions.

For those of us living in curfew-bound localities where we are dependent on the good graces of generally wayward supplies trucks that roll in occasionally, this change has been much more onerous. And that is where our hidden stores of grace, forbearance and compassion come in.

These are difficult times, no doubt, but everyone of us is capable of showing that essential modicum of dignity and consideration for our neighbours and fellow condominium residents as the case may be. So next time when our friendly Covid-era food trucks swing by, it would be a first class gesture of camaraderie and beneficence to fight the urge to amass as much as you can carry and then some. There are other residents who are in a similar nutritionally-deprived state, undergoing the very same Where’s-the-next-decent-meal-coming-from mental trauma and who would therefore mightily appreciate some manner of social solicitude.

So yes, despite the 40,000 year old homo sapien brain sophistication, there are those perplexing few among us who still feel their ancient Neanderthal instincts frantically kicking in when times are uncongenial. But, there is light at the end of that inter-epochal tunnel; a splendid little trick to help you overcome those unbecoming primeval compulsions: Drop down on one knee, or both (depending on your orthopaedic veracity) and pretend to look for some lost little thing (“Decency!” the crowd vociferates! But i digress…) Let the ancient brain, in the astute survival legacy of our Palaeolithic ancestors, urgently scout for the next meal potentially crawling by. That flagrant substratal self-reminder will almost surely help to put you squarely back on the path to Homo sapien self actualisation. And as the blood rushes to your brain while maintaining that perfect primate squat, stark Cro-Magnon man lucidity will hit even more sharply as you quite quickly realise that you’re darned well not going to munch through or cook those 2 Keells* bags full of vegetables you’re eyeing like manna from heaven, or wash your entire wardrobe 7 times over.

Let Grace into your lives- the quality that is; letting the lady in may cause inessential stress and scandal in these already testing times. (Bad joke- courtesy: Corona Fatigue!)

Come on folks, let’s be decent. Let there be kindness and empathy. And the vital awareness that never before has it been more important to unite as a community, a species and an intelligent, aware and perceptive life force across our wounded world.

Start with your neighbourhood. Be mindful. Be courteous. Be kind.

De Khudai pe aman.

*Keells: a prominent grocery chain across the island

PANDEMIC 2020|For whom the Curfew tolls

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Mighty Microbes, pandemicLeave a comment

(The summons of the Paleolithic Man!)

A bit of a rant, this. We’re one of the few countries where the citizens/ residents are being superintended by an all-out curfew rather than the slightly more assuasive (read: civilised) “Lockdown”.

This is now Day 15 of the curfew and there is no end in sight. As much as the citizenry at large appreciates the abundantly aggressive government efforts to quell the spread of this bacillus extremis, there has to be a method to the autocratic madness. And I’m not even discounting the efficacy of the said establishmentarian mania – a lot of us do well with a touch of dictatorial fanaticism. It must, however, be accompanied by some reasonable strategy and respite to keep the citizenry from resorting to unbecoming and indeed criminal mental and physical health-preserving conduct:

  • Unbridled social revelry (Ad_ D___*: “11,000 imprisoned” for flouting the curfew, no doubt to escape the ‘house arrest’ atmosphere of the last fortnight now, and counting);
    Venturing out of their homes on the sly (Ad_ D___: “2,700 vehicles impounded”, of blunderingly-adulting truants who were probably out to procure some bread or aspirin).

The populace at large, indulging in all manner of deception and intrigue to beat the system.

The logistical support in terms of the supply of essential food stuff, personal care and pharmaceutical products has been dismal, nay, grievously absent. It’s almost like the people of the city have been coercively cast in a tropical version of “The Hunger Games” – all scavenging for anything they can even remotely use (or not; the urge to amass is supreme), to survive with some degree of grace. We are (and not very unhurriedly at that!) giving in to our primeval hunter/ gatherer nature as Meghalayan supply chains have become woefully erratic at best and quite absent generally.

To the powers that be and to the Curfew administrators at large: we appreciate your version of tactical warfare in the face of the NCoV** assault, but a tad more thought behind the how, when and wherefore of maintaining order, and indeed the cycle of life itself in the Oceanic province*** is paramount. Get the perishable and non perishable food and medicines supply networks organised across all sectors of the city. When all’s said and done, with all its malefic pestilence, even the Corona plunges forth as per set environmental and proximity protocols. We, then, are touted to be the intelligent species, at the top of the food chain.

De Khudai pe aman.

*Ad_ D___: news portal/ broadcasting channel in the country

**NCoV: Novel Corona Virus

***Oceanic province: from Orwell’s “1984” where the the main plot unfolds in London, in the Oceanic Province that “had once been called England or Britain”

OPINION|The Myth of Super-Luxury Condominiums – Part Deux

On By Mahvash K. M.In Coronavirus, Mighty Microbes, pandemic, Stayhomefor, The harangueLeave a comment

(When the Food Chain upends – The age of fastidiousness, curfews and microscopic annihilators)

The current high stress, painfully limiting, curfew-constrained environment has been a fitting test for how well the Super luxurious developments in the city have responded to the basic needs of their residents – like the politico with the 100 watt smile and zero good intentions. Yes, it has been quite entirely dismal. One can probably, in a fit of magnanimity (and copiously blithesome inebriation), forgive the unconscionable oversights; but what has to be gleaned from all this all-out service ineptitude are lessons for other such times. For other such pestilentially afflicted times, there will be.

Besides the obvious and debilitating confinement brought on by the various lockdowns and curfews, there has followed in its wake, the almost non-existent fall back protocols for the supply of basic necessities and services at the besieged condos in the heart of “Premium Colombo”. Residential complexes in other areas/ townships, in fact, have had much better organised conduits of supply to meet demand. The worst faring have indeed, been the Super Luxury developments.

On a personal note, if it had not been for a friend’s domestic aid living in Homagama* from where he sourced vegetables, fruit and dairy, I’d be living off Lilly’s** 10 day old food, fastidiously apportioning it and then scraping the last bits off so that the further lack of dish washing soap at least, wasn’t going to be a problem.

My Super premium condominium actually has a mini market on the premises. Needless to say, it remains shut quite frequently even at the most easeful of social times so it was no surprise to see its sombrely shuttered facade through this entire ordeal; a jeering reminder of how fickle the entire super luxury leitmotif really is.

The management of these developments needs to rouse itself from the salubriously benumbing breezes of the Galle Face Green and look at actually making “Life in the times of the Bacillus Extremis” less arduous for their high-paying residential populace. It’s time to re-evaluate essential skeletal staff numbers together with what constitutes essential services, to ensure life can go on in the sundered cocoons everyone is being forced to build around them. Standing agreements with grocery stores, pharmacies and even laundry services, will be integral towards appreciably improving life in isolation for the residents of the Premium branded residencies.

Time to look and act beyond having the residential address doing all the high-caliber talking. Time to get your hands dirty and implement some real value- added services for the convenience of the residents. The age of the Mighty Microbes is only just beginning and we need to have a head start in making sure we adapt our lives likewise, underscored by carefully deliberated standards of comfort, safety and sophistication.

De Khudai pe aman

Mahvash.

*Homagama: a little town 24kms south east of Colombo in Sri Lanka

**Lilly: a wicked cook who, twice-weekly, whips up gastronomical delights for me; and who heretofore has also been the bearer of all perishable food to my humble abode. Without her, my larder is as barren as the Gobi desert in June.

VERSE|I shot the Sheriff

On By Mahvash K. M.In A desi in Colombo, alphabet soup for the soul, Coronavirus, Foot in the Mouth, Mighty Microbes, pandemic, poetry, Stayhomefor, verseLeave a comment 
And I think he’s called the Covid, the Covid 19.
I also know this declaration seems somewhat extreme
Because I hadn’t been tested
So how could I have bested
The microbe that has its pestilential claws
render all it touches, grievously impure?
Try “dead” to be factual!
But hope doth spring eternal ....
In this pandemic, we lasses are only gently brushing by Hades
We’re nothing if not intrepid of spirit, what say you ladies!

But I digress- yes I still maintain,
That I encountered the corona conta-gion! 
It came upon me like a flash in the pan;
One day I was hearty, the next, weary and wan.
And my muscles, they did ache
Like someone had driven a stake
Through both of my legs, ala some Vampire Chronicles
Except ‘twere my limbs that were speared, and not my coronary auricles.
Could have been the ventricles too I concede,
But poetry is distinct from prose, you too will accede.

Continuing the saga, I was sick as a dog
No not quite, I’m just exaggerating a tad!
But there was intermittent nausea and my spirits had dithered;
The full bodied lily had ever so slightly withered.
I thought I would get lighter
By a kilo...or fiver.
But the ‘piggy pangs’ continued to be salubrious guests,
And so, I beat the virus at my robustest best.

So why do I say that I have sat at the table
With the Mighty Corona and am yet able
To count myself not only among the recovered and well,
But also that alone, I greeted and then bade him farewell?
Because it defies logic and reason,
That the virus is enjoying a full hunting season
In the First World, which with all its military might
Hasn’t been able to quell this microbial blight;
While the much more vulnerable emerging nations
Are seemingly left to their third world machinations.

So I’ll end with a salute to our high caliber genes
For besting a bacillus extremis like Covid 19

De khudai pe aman

Mahvash.

PANDEMIC 2020|The End of History and the ‘New’ Man

On By Mahvash K. M.In A clash of civilzations, Coronavirus, Francis Fukuyama, Genetics, Mighty Microbes, pandemic, samuel huntington, SpiritualityLeave a comment

In the most extraordinary and arcane turn of such events generally, the First World appears to be collapsing in on itself in the face of the most recent ‘Invasion of the Mighty Microbe’. The West is frenziedly battling on all fronts as the developing world watches on in mystified fascination – an extreme reality show played out in real time where the main protagonists are all involuntary apocalyptic funambulists and the viewers can’t wait to switch on their TV sets every morning. Disconcerting and distressing as the now serialised drama is, there is an undisputedly surreal and strangely Delphic feel to the corporeal matinee.

Even more stupefying is the shocked, wholly overcome reactions of the American populace at large. From woefully ill-equipped (both materially and mentally) ER doctors to the mainstream wage earner, there is an almost touching sense of disbelief at the cataclysmic hand the “greatest country on earth” seems to have been dealt in the global playground: for once, being the receiver of fateful punches rather than the bestower. Their traditional role of planetary police, judge and jury subverted by a microscopic Warrior of Destinies. We have virtually overnight stepped into a world where economic might is as tenuous as the last few rays of a tropical sunset.

Samuel Huntington, in his 1993 foreign affairs thesis, “A clash of Civilisations”, forwarded a then very compelling argument on how, post the Cold War, the world was being demarcated, not along geo-political or socio-economic ideologies, but along cultural and religious divides. Thus far, thus true.

Thus begins a new chapter. Could this be the beginning of an intransigent new world order dictated by “The Superior Genome”? Could this be the brave new epoch where advantageous immunogenicity serves as the new First World currency? Could we then, be on the brink of another intra-species evolution? Could this be Nature bidding a laboured adieu to yet another cycle of life, another aeon of being; in preparation for a new age with an altered consciousness and a renewed life force?

We can only introspect and conjecture.

But Time, in the most succinct tones, will tell.

De khudai pe aman

Mahvash.

PANDEMIC 2020|The Corona Theatre – the Muses weigh in

On By Mahvash K. M.In alphabet soup for the soul, Coronavirus, pandemic, StayhomeforLeave a comment

We have indeed entered the Age of the Mighty Microbes as the days go by and mankind continues to buckle at the knees in the face of the latest onslaught. Welcome to 01AC – Year 1, Anno Coroni

Despite the obvious ravages wrought by the bacillus, one can’t help but take an existential view of the situation. Twenty first century Political ideologues, Economic powerhouses and Moral custodians all continue to be similarly baffled and besieged by the all-embracing, unrelenting sweep of the “invisible enemy” – some would say a Diviner, a harbinger of things to come.

In the midst of this unprecedented assailment, Melpomene and Thalia* have managed to do a few merry dances together choreographed by Dionysus** himself, as we continue to see blitzes of comedy, madness, revelry and of course, kindness and triumph in the advancing milieu.

The Comedy and the Madness: personified so aptly by our very own planetary resident uno – the 45th president of the US of A. His initially altogether bewildered, butted-in-the-stomach look has very rapidly evolved to his signature winging-it-with-the-confidence-of-a-rocket/ (microbiology!)-scientist avatar. This time though, the usual spin doctoring is very hard to believe even if one is a Die-Hard Trump supporter. Because when all’s said and done, there is a difference in dying hard literally, especially with the Corona at the helm of the transition from figurative to literal. Entertaining and cringe-worthy simultaneously are the expressions of the medical professionals of the American Coronavirus Task Force while Trump oscillates between making comically absurd statements (the “Chinese virus”/ we are hours away from a vaccine) to downright obnoxious ones (slamming a journalist who asked for his response/ reassurance for the troubled American populace at large). Other charming inclusions here are the Brazilian president who thought congenially rubbing shoulders with Senhor Corona was a political tour de force; and the Sri Lankan politico who was convinced that his act of taking off his own well-worn mask and putting it around the face of another was the ultimate apex of on-point political savviness.

Act 1, Scene 1 – Thalia and Melpomene are hamming a demented fox trot all over the summer harvest; the picture is both jocose and psychotic.

The Revelry: with the younger denominator around the globe and the fogyish in places where it is “UnBritish” to enforce controls of any kind, there has been an almost unhinged disregard for the calamitous prophecy embedded in the Corona DNA. Pubs, clubs and beaches have continued to be thronged by the Corona cynics; because communal drinking and socialising traditions that have prevailed even through the extreme exigences of WW2 can hardly be sidelined by the scare tactics of a (Boris) Johnny come lately.

Act 1- Scene 2: The Theatre twins are pantomiming a steroid-fuelled ballroom dance across the streets of the First World.

The Triumph: And then, the veni, vidi, vici moments of some nations as they adjusted for, battled and triumphed (at least for now) over the ‘C-adversary’. In an ironic twist of fate, the bulk of the nations here have been from the Asian/ developing world. The dignity, gravitas, foresightedness and pertinacity with which these nations brought their people together to ‘little by little, drive out” the enemy is unparalleled, given, in some cases, the relative vastness of their populations.

The Corona may yet turn the tables and angle the tide on the current world order. It may yet drastically change priorities and aspirations, visions and goals, neighbourliness and compassion, community and connections – the very essence of what defines us as humankind.

Act 1- Final scene: While Melpomene slumbers, Thalia sways gently to the rhythm of the swishing leaves as a fresh, new breeze blows lightly through the field.

De khudai pe aman.

*Melpomene and Thalia: the Muses of Tragedy and Comedy respectively

**Dionysus: Greek god of Theatre and other fun things! Look him up 🤓