May 30, 2021 Commentary from the couch

 

May 30, 2021 Commentary from the couch: What happens after a storm is sometimes more important than what happens during it. Yaas came in with ominous possibilities. The city braced for it. Some parts of the city had electricity turned off. There was great foreboding that destruction was on its way. The reality was a little different. Much like the tsunami of cases that was predicted for India by the West at the beginning of COVID-19 in 2020, there was the sense that Yaas would be a devastating event rivaling the Aamphan of 2020. Thankfully the first wave was not as bad as anticipated. But it was the days after Yaas that surprised the city. The rain came after Yaas. Unexpected. As did the second wave of COVID-19. The deaths came in the second wave. The news turned bad quickly as water accumulated across the city, the trash was mixed in with the torrent and COVID-19 again took a back seat. The city was inundated, looking out the window there was rain and overcast skies. But that too cleared and the news reported that the nicer weather that followed brought out joy riders, defying the lockdown, as people took to the streets and the authorities had a busy day handing out citations to those who seemed to have thrown COVID-19 caution to the wind to enjoy the calm after the storm. A storm like Yaas is a metaphor for life. Especially now in the uncertainty of what is about to come. The second wave of the COVID-19 storm appears to be changing course. The graphs, trustable or not, are turning downwards. Cases are fewer, the scarcity of hospital beds, oxygen and medicines seems to have become manageable. Even though the numbers are high, the trend seems to suggest that the cyclone is less severe. This may be the time to celebrate, many would think. These storms have raged across the globe and in some places people truly believe that the storm is over. Fair weather has returned. And thus the Bank holidays in many parts of the West is a time to congregate, go to restaurants and break out of the oppression of isolation. I wonder whether there will never be any more storms or are all future storms merely gusty winds that drop off almost as soon as they begin. Just mere annoyance because everyone has a wind cheater. One that cheats the virus, even as it enters the body, the body is protected by the internal wind cheater and we can be sanguine that we are invincible. If we are indeed wearing the wind cheater. What happens then when some do not have the protection from the storm, or worse still, believe that no protection is needed. According to some news reports the unprotected suffer massively, not only making themselves vulnerable but even endangering those who live with the dangerous belief that they have become invincible. When the next storm comes, one only hopes that the wind cheater is not torn with time or has holes in it with wear. What happens after the storm can be equally dangerous as what happens during it, may be even worse. The fair weather brings us out, until we are slowed down by police citations. In some storms there may not be such citations, because the ones responsible for giving citations may also believe that fair weather has returned, and no citations are called for. It is as if what happens when the rains start the fire, who puts out that fire then? As Kishore asked, “sawan jo aag lagaye use kaun bhujayye?”