Till I actually made it to my writing table, I had thought that this strip should explore the many theories of Corona virus doing the rounds — some in conspiratorial hush-hush tones, and others hollering from the mountain top… adhering to the principles of free speech but… but with the minds gone fidgety with fear, and with nothing else to talk about save Covid-19, I dropped the idea. As a matter of fact, instead of a mouth-mask or face-mask or whatever name it goes by, a few evenings ago, gifted myself a noise-canceller diligently donning my ears, so once home, (nopes, quarantining myself, not an option, unless God forbid, this virus erupts into an epidemic…) do not have, not one, but two TVs, with booze-swigging obsessiveness giving minute-to-minute updates on how many more had tested positive, with Emergency now going on further neck-breaking acceleration.
No, so no talk of how the possibility of America wanting to halt China from the robust strident steps it’s been taking in the global market, and so some virus especially ‘created’ to keep the country gasping for air. The operation, having somehow, misfired and thus spread like forest-fire ricocheting to lands way beyond China… No cloak and dagger conjectures, yet before scrolling on to more earthly pursuits, must add — on a conclusive note, since so much ink has been used up in touching upon a topic not to be alluded to right from the time go — whoever said, ‘A new day is a new dawn’ in the current climate needs to bin the saying since it is being received with glass-eyed disdain for those non-doers who offer only ‘talking cures’.
A few early mornings ago with dappled sunlight gently brushing the garden’s grass to wake up to another dawn (Good Heavens, wasn’t supposed to come out like that, might revise my decision of not getting a mask, of the unperforated kind over my mouth!) when I heard that a 2-Child Norm of a Private Bill variety was soon to be introduced in Parliament. The brain-child of Abhishek Singhvi. Here, all married, unmarried or same gender couples should, in the interest of the nation, think that procreating must be limited to 2 children. As, we all know, the overwhelming population explosion of our country is an impediment to its growth, progress — speaking not only economically but from all other angles.
A snippet of a film: Buses with people perilously hanging on for dear-life, one foot on the entry step of the lorry, the other careening in the air; railway stations where one quite possibly, going by the statistics a friend compiled, is a stampede ground for fractured feet. This collating, amassed while waiting for his turn at the ATM, his putting together the decimals still incomplete, since the phone’s battery went dead on Aman, with him yet in the labyrinthine long queue.
Two children are more than a handful, would you differ?! Parents, coming from various economic segments, could make it a possibility for their moppets to lead the kind of lives they had set their sights on… Digging briefly into our mindset, is it not true, that we, generally speaking, have the need for an ‘heir’, whether roofed under a jhuggi or a mansion?! And the heir comes only in the form of a male, a boy, a son, so do not lose sight of the goal even if one is blessed with two lovable daughters. Try, try, try until you succeed, till one at last, holds that child who is hailed as the spine in one’s back! Then there is one community of ours that, by and large, is convinced that outnumbering is the name of the game. The more the mightier; so breeding must go on, even if one has sired a cavalcade of male successors. It’s about multiple multiplication so that making one’s claim to the ground beneath the feet is more substantial.
One of the reasons for China to have become a major kingpin, airily staring America straight-in-the-eyes, with its Made-in-China goods of all shapes and sizes, stocked sky-high in all stores, supermarkets, eateries is solely because of its One-Child Policy. With population, bursting from the seams, (to use a worn-out expression) everything runs short, runs dry with only an increase of less of less. Less food, less water… Less or near-invisible basic amenities, and no connect-the-dots exercise to see the spiralling unemployment, an economy ever-in recession. The state of affairs, as is in full-view here in our Swadesh… Unemployment, even with a reasonably fine curriculum vitae showcasing an education that is job-worthy, is at an all-time high. A peep into a simple, straightforward clip: One placement, 1000 applicants. The outcome: Hangdog youth taking to drugs, alcohol, leading to an underbelly world of crime. Heard of joining a drug-nexus which also runs a flesh trade, not on the side, but as a sister concern with the police hands-in-glove?!
Many, many years ago the jingle, perhaps, went something like, ‘Hum Doh, HumareDoh’. Evidently, no one cared to pause and pay heed, and this war-cry — not the instructive ting-a-linging — died a natural death. On this, another time, because had this wharp whoop been followed, India today would have been truly shining. Back to Abhishek’s 2-Child Norm Bill. It comes with both incentives and disincentives. Video-graphing this by: If parents have only one child, who happens to be a boy, and decide to go in for sterlisation/operation, preventing for all time, to have no further offspring, then an acknowledgment in the form of a Rs 60,000 cheque goes their way. Inversing the situation with a single girl child, with reproductive parts irreversibly tied up for no more procreation, a sum of one lakh as a sign of commendation. Space refrains me from broaching the dampers if couples still wish to go the rabbit way, for whatever their reasons…
For now, no more tete-a-tete; this column has to sail since I hear domestic immigration ports have been set up to check if posts are not carriers of an apocalypse.