The virus as superhero

Dear novel coronavirus, I am a great fan of yours. You are the real hero of the twenty-first century for many reasons. I am trying to list below the feats by which you have achieved your superhero status.

It has been nearly a year since I started reading your name every single day in newspapers and hearing it every day in TV news. We can change the TV channels if we don't like a particular news reader or if we feel the news channells present their views as news and I often do so.

Sometimes I am infuriated with all the news channels for their vulgar sensationalising the news and I skip the news channels altogether and go to movie channels. But whether I choose this or that news channel, whether I choose this or that movie channel, I can't escape from hearing your name again and again. In news channels you are mentioned both in news and ads.

In movie channels you are mentioned in the ads that are screened more than the time the movie takes to end. There are the ads of plywood companies that say their plywood kills viruses including you; there are the ads of bath-soaps and handwashing lotions that say the soaps and lotions kill viruses including you; there are ads of washing machines that say the washing machine kills you; there are ads of floor cleaning lotions that say the lotion kills viruses including you.

I really admire you for helping a plethora of diverse companies to make profit by 'killing' you while you infect many thousand people every day. What a superhero you are! The companies kill you and make profit and you are not killed and continue to infect and kill people.

The advertising companies don't know that they are trying to kill a superhero who single-handedly masked the entire world. They don't know you are a braveheart who taught even Mr. Trump not to play with you. They don't know the stupendous feats you have achieved as nobody else has achieved in our recent history. You have closed the schools for nearly a year, you have stopped the overcrowding for functions and the unnecessary spending in the name of marriages and other such functions.

You taught the people that marriages can be solemnised simply. You taught the people to depend on locally available food items. You taught the people not to rush to hospitals and swallow pills for the silliest of reasons and ruin their health.

And you stopped the political gatherings and processions that used to be an unavoidable public nuisance. You have altered our lives in a way that was not even imaginable ten months ago. Just as you have changed our life in many ways, you exposed our illogical and unreasonable outlooks and notions too.

We have heard the chanting "go corona, go"; we have heard people say drinking cow urine will make us immune against you; we have heard (in Kerala) turmeric and gooseberry juice will ward you off. And we have heard the 'faithful' people say that you are sent by God to punish the humans for their crimes against God!

Dear virus, you may ask me for what crimes and against which God. My answer is: "I don't think the humans have committed and commit crimes against gods; but I think the humans have committed and commit heinous crimes against humans in the name of gods and you have taught the whole humanity how inconsequential the humans and their gods are by making the humans shut their temples and churches and mosques and stop their overcrowded religious rituals and ceremonies in fear of you."