Repeatedly I find myself going back to one topic I promise, repeatedly again, not to touch upon. Actually, totally steer clear of, as the expression goes, but then I am at the same spot. Covid, as we universally so, were debriefed had taken a beating, was out of the scene for good. This vicious epidemic had, courtesy the due diligence of our pharmaceutical companies, been put to rest. We barely managed to come up for air after a collective sigh of relief—to put it mildly—when almost a year ago, we were first informed that the pandemic was energetically slithering its way back, and then this jolting discovery takes a backseat when we are apprised of how the life-saving vaccinations, to stonewall the Corona, were the ultimate culprit. Still reeling with these colliding facts, with figures thrown in for a good measure, attempting to put a handle on what’s what, so many people we know, as well as friends of friends’, seem to be succumbing to a nasty fall, caused by hitherto unknown blood pressure levels or fatal cardiac arrests, with again, zilch history of heart ailment, diabetes or whatever it is, that pushes you in this direction. And so, another panic sets in. If one cares to recall—the inoculation to damn Covid-19 was conducted with a zeal that would leave missionaries panting to keep ever respectable pace. And there we were, rather the most of us, waiting patiently for our turn to get that do-or-die jab. Sixty days later, in the same queue, for the second and final round of shots, to acquire that invincible armour. That taken care of, and a smugness sets in. Questions doing the rounds in abundant social gatherings—via Zoom—were about these pokes. Some snapshots: “We could meet up yes, yes, but do tell me the date of your second jab?” (Perhaps, you could take a picture of the proud certificate that you had done the needful, just to be extra sure!) “No, no, no, it wasn’t being paranoid, not by a long shot, only that in these trying times, one couldn’t be cautious enough, right?!” Listen in: Did you know that clubs, cultural centres, libraries etc. were finally throwing open their doors?? Albeit, not with open-armed abandon but with dry-mouthed wariness. Yes, despite those Covid-rid days of staying locked indoors, with curtains drawn tightly on all windows, day and night, so the slippery smart virus might just believe that the house homed no residents, people were falling prey.
Falling like a pack of cards. Of course, this was before the holier-than-thou, immunization had sanctimoniously taken to the steering. Post-booster, we were free to troop out of our houses, but somehow, we had become habituated to staying at home, wearing track pants and T-shirts while flopping around in slippers. And so, life seemed to have fallen in place. Men would think of shaving perhaps twice a week, women would tie up their tangled hair in an unkempt ponytail. Why bother—no office, no market, no guests, so just be! Kids too, with no school, forgot all about shirts, ties and shoes—the uniform code. Strangely, staying under one roof did not draw the family closer, create a cohesive bond. On the contrary, each were in their own bubble—the children, in any case, had been lost to the digital universe piling apps after apps on their smartphone—without this device schooling from home impossible. Funny, how the handset had morphed into a new-age Pied Piper! Packaged foods—heat and ready-to-eat paranthas, samosas, a simple fry away, and rajma, dal makhini, kaddi pakora simply to be dunked from their perfectly compact pouches into a pan and presto, an aromatic meal was, in a trice, on the dining table. Of course, noodles and pasta remained, as still is the case, the all-time favourite. However, we’ve strayed too far, so need to rein in, and scratch one’s head, in the effort, to recall where one was headed before drifting off coast. Yes, how the boosters to shield us from the deadly pandemic, ensure we are Covid-proof, and how slowly but surely, it’s coming to fore that these Corona-countering injections have counter-affects. It was two Aprils ago, while I was taking a bracing walk to clear the head that felt like a bag of rabbits and hence restart my brain, when from a distance, I saw a neighbour, sitting droop-headed on a bench under a droopier tree. Minutes later, I found myself perched next to her, and after a few moments of neighbourly silence, out came her, choked in whimpers, story: Her dear-most aunt, the one who with her characteristic boundless energy, had a razor-sharp mind and ran the house like a tight ship. One side of her face droops as she proceeds, with a sudden, though slight speech impediment—Aunty, her Bua, a week or so after her second vaccination, developed dangerously high blood pressure. The next morning, the maid, found her unconscious on the floor, presumably after tumbling drastically. Brain haemorrhage, declared the doctors, rolling her in for surgery. A few dark mornings later, she passed away. To briefly film by some other interlocking die-post-jab happenings, if that is what they can be called. Two brothers, of a work-associate, hit the gym a few evenings after been administered the first shot. Twenty odd minutes on the treadmill, and they collapse and die, almost in the same breath. All of 32! Heart arrest?! Really?! Never had a sick day in their lives, wailed the mother of these twins. More than a dozen people, known to me, have their own calamitous stories: A husband lay awake, nights on end, shaken by an ominous rattling in his lungs.
After 10 days of battling this vicious chest infection, dies. An ebullient class teacher of my young nephew, out of the blue, is diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes, need I go on…This last Monday, a dearest friend’s son passed away. Was it mandatory in Amsterdam to go in for five shots to keep Covid at bay?! Mannan, whyever did you set up home in the Netherlands, I implored the boy, who had gone with the wind.
What does one make of the near overnight, en masse production of vaccinations?! Doesn’t it take years to come up with a safe and viable magic bullet?! Where was the pre-requisite testing of the vials?! Humans put on trial, if one might daresay?! Pharmaceutical companies going in for the kill, in the blink of an eye, sprint from a trillion dollar industry to a zillion buck one?!