A poetic take on the dreaded pandemic

Every crisis, big or small, teaches us some lessons. The crisis of the Covid pandemic is no exception. It caught us, the entire world unawares. Soon it has acquired gargantuan proportions, causing huge loss of life, wealth and many more things. Again, a crisis is like an occasion. Every occasion, good, or bad, spurs our imagination, the imagination in turn sows ideas and thoughts in us and when ideas and thoughts become experiences, they often take the shape of literature.

The Covid pandemic is a crisis, an occasion, an idea, an experience and as such it has spurred some of us to write poetry on and about it. And sometimes such poetry or literature turns out to be prophetic.

As I have said earlier here, the pandemic has deprived us of many things. We have lost our people near and dear, we have lost jobs, business, income, time and many pleasures like meeting friends and relatives, eating out, family outings, travel so on and so forth. Losing has become a norm, almost a habit with us. We have in a sense become insensitive to losing, have mastered the sense of loss as an art!

Elisabeth Bishop, renowned American poet, has captured this universal sense of loss in her poem, "One Art". The opening lines of the poem say it all pithily:

"The art of losing isn't hard to master;

So many things seem filled with the intent

To be lost that their loss is not a disaster."

Here is the twist. Though this autobiographical poem was written in 1970s, it reflects our common sense of loss during these Covid times. The pandemic has terrorised all of us, both the young and the aged and even children are touched and traumatised.

Indulekha, a Seventh Standard student from Hyderabad, has conveyed all her sense of loss and isolation using simple words in the following lines;

"We, who always chat and dine in groups,

Now prefer to stay away,

And with a mask on our mouths

Sit at home straight away.

Nobody is going to school anymore,

No child playing in the park.

Nobody's opening the door."

'Save The Children' invited 15 children from 15 different countries and asked them to write a poem each about their experiences during the lockdown period. All their poems echoed their feelings and impressions about the Covid pandemic.

"What the last evening will be like" by Edward Hirsch is yet another poem which captures our universal sense of loss and loneliness;

"No one else is around to drink with you,

From the watery fog, shadowy depths.

You're alone with the whirling cosmos.

Goodbye, love, far away in a warm place.

Night is endless, silence, infinite."

May 12th all over the world is celebrated as a National Limerick Day. A 'Limerick' is a five-line humorous poem with an "aabba" rhyme scheme. On that day I made a shy attempt at expressing my thoughts about the pandemic in five limericks which underscore the hidden pain in all of us. (It may be noticed here that the lines in the first two Limericks begin with the letters in the words - COVID VIRUS ).

Cases pile up at hospitals

Order failed, falls as petals

Varied forms you have to appear

In people near and dear

Death at hand stands in the

portals.

Variants are your arms

In our nose, on palms

Ride our lives for thrill

Unmasked people you kill

Singe on pyres all our dreams!

We have no magic wand

To send you back to your land

Nor a portion in our lab

A trick in a hat to grab

You to put down bound

You love our lungs and throats

Force us wear all kinds of coats

We catch you in swabs

Put to test in labs

Kill you one day,say our brats

We have great bribe takers,

Power deal makers,

Crafty leaders and shiny lakes

Saints, quacks, and fabled snakes But you outwit all those charmers.

Where science ends,God takes over!

Euphoria from pandemic holocaust is still far away as corona virus is ruling the roost inspite of emerging varieties of vaccines and spree of inoculations are being administered. Governments are constantly monitoring to decimate the dragon's devil from our midst. But it is quite miffing that our fellow human beings are faulting to uphold main criteria of physical distance despite incessant appeals right from Prime Minister down to lowest health worker. The diagrams drawn in square or round circles before malls are just two-three feet distance only. In general vendors and customers never follow any protocal which was seen in fish sale shops during mrigasira karthe. Every individual speaks high morals and ethics but many join together they spend their time in unnecessary frettings and fumings. Vivekananda's says "that which is selfish is immoral and that which is unselfish is moral". We are not as we preach. As Karl Marx also said "all social relations are economic relations". It is an undeniable fact.

It is heart rending to observe clamorous scenes of small children for their parents who were bitten to death by vicious virus. It leaves a ray of pleasure that these orphans will be taken care of by governments for their future lives. Another mind wrenching misdeeds being heinously committed by house owners are deserting the covid dead and disallowing covid affected persons into their dwelling places. It is less to speak or not to comment corporate and private medical leaches that squeeze until last pie of pestilent patients and finally wrap them with white clothes.

We, the Indians still repose our faith on our Gods, the ultimate hope for His granting serendipity. Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel is conducting eversince this 'karkasa' (corona) malevolent evil erupted on the globe to perturb our peaceful life, parayanams on Bhagavad Gita Sundara Kanda from Ramayanam, important chapters from Mahabharatam by chanting hymns and elucidating them in soft and perspicuous dialect for better understanding by listeners. We should trust on Him that our perspicacious prayers and chaplets to the Almighty will rescue us from this enoid. Belief on God starts where science ends.

— N.Ramalakshmi,Secunderabad

A see-saw battle with the pandemic is on

The second wave had created a huge impact because of Covid fatigue and doing away with the norms of the virus. Of late, the state of Telangana is fortunate to have a downward surge in the number of Covid cases with a TPR of 1.42. It brought a sigh of relief to the State Government and health care centers with a rise in the number of recoveries and a flat curve in number of active cases. No sooner did the effect of second wave flattened, the government, instead of bragging about their achievement in combating corona virus, should figure out plans of action for either maintaining the flattened curve for an extended period of time or complete eradication of the virus from the State.

Virus, being mutant in nature, leaves no scope for its complete extermination. Therefore, domiciles of the State should follow the fundamental precautions of wearing a mask (preferably double), cleaning hands with a sanitizer, fumigate houses, work places with sodium hypochlorite solution at regular intervals, maintain social distance, and adhere to the High Court pressurized State lockdown imposed by the State in a phased manner. The success mantra for combating this virus is the maintenance of a strict regime in the personal hygiene by all the individuals and their timely vaccination.

The government has to end politicising vaccines. Bearing all the shortcomings of the Centre's failure in handling the second wave in its mind, each State government should stand for the safety, health and welfare of its people. It needs to procure vaccines from the manufacturers and plan its re-order for both the shots especially in the rural areas. The vaccination programme has to be given utmost importance in every State and Union territory.

I would like to conclude by stating that if the above measures are followed and there is a dominant government intervention in the vaccination drive, individual states/union territories along with the Country as a whole, can successfully prevent its third wave completely or mitigate the risk of its spread to a greater extent.

— Madhulika N, Hyderabad