The second wave has turned out to be much worse. The number of positive cases per day has been more than four times of last year. The number of dead too is in similar proportion. We are in the worst situation in South Asia. People are running in search of oxygen to save their near and dear. They are searching for beds. The number of equipment does not match the requirements. In this one year when we had known the course of the disease we failed to prepare. Bodies floating in Ganga river was something hitherto unknown in a democratic country which wants to be Vishva Guru. Our per capita income fell below Bangladesh which has nearly three times more population density than us and has much less number of industries.
Some people faulted, but 139 crores are meeting the fate and are struggling hard to save lives and to earn living during the lock downs re-imposed. The crisis has been since the beginning of April. But all this left the prime mover unmoved. He was going around the election bound states addressing rallies with pride. It is difficult to imagine how many times he might have rehearsed before pretending to cry for the dead probably after receiving repeated reports of his losing popularity. People of the country are not fools. They give a damn to such gimmicks. That is why so many sections of media reflected people’s views terming the so called act of crying as crocodile tears.
Crises have to be faced boldly with logic and scientific bent of mind. India has the history where freedom fighters sacrificed their whole property and lands. They sacrificed their lives. But never compromised with the imperialist tyrants. Such people never shed tears, they stand firm. When one is at a governing position he/she has to be a strength for others; so has to show boldness. Pretending to cry is an act of cover up of failures and cowardice.
Instead of pretending to cry it would have been better to talk to health care workers, the doctors, nurses, ASHA & Aanganwadi workers and others and listened to their grievances and sorted out their issues of concern. Would have paid special attention of the staff working in the COVID wards. Assuaged stress and strain they and their families are passing through. But alas the ministry even did not have data of health workers who had died of COVID. The PM could have won over farmers’ heart by deferring the implementation of the farm laws till the government reaches an agreement with them. He could have held dialogue with workers over their grievances to the new codes. This is a good time to defer Central Vista project and divert money to Pandemic for buying vaccines.
Mother gets upset when the child is in pain but boldly tries to solve the problem with love and affection. In the poem Cry of the Children, Mrs Browning has brought forward the agony children were passing through in the early industrialization period in England. These children never pretended and so did the poetess. “The Cry of the Children" is a poem by English writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It examines children's manual labour forced upon them by their exploiters. It was published in August 1843 in Blackwood's. The PM could have talked of children’s agony as we know hundreds of children die of mal nutrition in our country, and in present times they are loosing their parents being orphaned by dreaded decease Covid 19.
That is why it was not a cry, just another means to try to befool others. (IPA Service)
A CRY THAT WAS NOT
139 CRORE SUFFER FOR THE MISTAKE OF A FEW
Dr. Arun Mitra - 2021-05-25 10:14
The catastrophic damage caused by the COVID pandemic has put every person on physical and mental strain. Several families have lost their members. Losing kith and kin leads to the biggest stress on one’s mind. No person unless totally emotionless can avoid crying with sorrow and pain of others. The process began from the abruptly announced lockdown one year back without consulting anyone or considering the damage to the jobs and livelihood it would cause. The number of people in reverse migration was beyond imagination. People walked on foot, bicycles, rickshaws, autos or any other means they could get. They were herded in the vehicles on exorbitant charges like the animals are carried by the butchers. It is not easy to forget the video of a two years baby whose mother had died on the railway station and the baby was covering her with sheet. The scene was not less heart-rending than the photo of a Syrian child dead at sea shore or the picture of a vulture waiting for the child to die so that it could eat the dead baby during civil war in Somalia. None in the government at the Centre was moved by such events albeit the Prime Minster termed the sufferings of the working people as ‘Tapasya’. It is an addition to the vocabulary that sufferings caused due to some other person’s acts are Tapasya.