It’s right we’re going through some tough times. It’s right we’re finding it tough to negotiate crisis which plunges the whole world into unprecedented crisis. It’s right we’re taken aback to see a mighty civilization that boasts of buying land in other planet can face an abject defeat at the hands of a virus whose combined world-wide weight, with its other sister variants, is less than one gram! It’s right that our pride is taken for a ride by an invisible enemy. It’s right we’re reduced to a highly, ridiculously hopeless lot. It’s right we’re forced to be masked. It’s right we’re forced to do social distancing from each other. It’s right distancing is the order of the day that makes a death of a fellow man insignificant. It’s right fellow-feeling is replaced by self-concern. It’s right me matters most. It’s right none matters any more. It’s right it’s been there all along. It’s right it’s been hidden under a veneer of culture, euphemistically called Humanism. It’s right manufactured humanism is exposed. It’s revealed in its true colour and spirit: me way or no way. Yes, it’s right, I’m afraid, my friends.
Yes, shockingly it’s right, for a self-cause we’ve been directing our activities so far in the name of morality, ideology, religion and sundry what not.
Time is a great leveller. And reveller too. So a horse can halt rush-hour traffic on Howrah bridge as he idles his time on the busy thoroughfare. An elephant can check every passing vehicle to see what it likes to at Jhargram. Peacocks can dance in elation on Delhi roads. Tigers can cross roads at their own sweet will in Gujrat.
And ther’re birds. Sparrows are coming back in an increased number. Old timers are bouncing back. Tree after tree birds are playing in. They’re calling to each other, making hay of their stay on earth.
And the humans are ever busy to wash their hands time and again day and night. They know, to live on, sanitising their hands and environs is necessary. So they look down, turn on taps and soap their hands repeatedly, religiously, aggressively, passionately.
Yes, washing hands is the new ritual humans indulge themselves in. Don’t know, how much water will be needed, how many sanitisers will be needed to wash the hands clean. It’s the hands that kill fellow man, fellow animal, fellow tree, fellow river, fellow mountain.
These hands are blood-stained.
These hands need tireless, ceaseless washing.
It’s time for a horse to laze on, for an elephant to check on marauding humans-driven vehicles, for a tiger to amble across road and for a peacock to dance in delirium, in celebration. Of course!
Role reversal, it is what the humans ignominiously have to adjust themselves to.
Nature has righted her course of action.
Yes, she’s right.
It’s right.