What’s become of my country…what’s happening to my fellow citizens!

I’m finding it difficult to come up with the exact words or relevant phrases to describe the pain cum sorrow cum restlessness brewing in me, seeing the sheer disasters faced by hundreds and thousands of my fellow citizens.

Coronavirus is just one aspect. But the bigger and more significant aspect is how the spread of this virus has been going about uncontrolled, mismanaged by the government of the day.

In fact, let me go a step beyond. It’s not the mismanagement alone but there stands out an array of false promises and hollow hopes. People are feeling cheated and conned. Hoodwinked. Taken for a ride…towards graveyards, qabristans, shamshan ghats, electric crematoriums.

Last week, as the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan gave that elaborate interview to television channels that there is no shortage of vaccines and the required medicines to beat this virus, people felt somewhat re-assured, more so as he repeatedly kept saying, “I’m saying this on record there’s no shortage of vaccines....” But the very next day news reports came with exact facts and factors, of the several vaccination centres in Mumbai and also in particular towns of Uttar Pradesh which had run out of the vaccines. In fact, callousness to such an extent that in a particular vaccination centre of Uttar Pradesh a woman patient was not given the jab for coronavirus; instead, she received the rabies shot.

We have moved back to the dark ages, where people were left dying in the absence of adequate medical facilities and care. Where are all those political men who cried out from the political platforms that they are taking this country and its masses towards massive development and more development? Where’s that supposed development when our people are dying if not already dead? The technically alive are also not so alive… jobless and with that, homeless and hungry. Yes, hunger is devouring us, as each single day drags in many more disasters.

Our people cannot be fed on political speeches. They are vomiting out all that junk. They have had enough. In fact, as a Lucknow-based friend cried aloud, “Earlier we could at least cremate the dead with the traditional, age old customs…not like today, when there’s a long queue and a waiting time, and police all around at the crematoriums and shamshans. One can’t even die in peace. And though hundreds are dying but even here there’s a huge difference between the official and unofficial figures of the dead. Spare the dead. Let them depart to a better world in peace and with dignity.”

What’s becoming of us and what’s becoming of our land? Do today’s ruling lot want this country with or without the people? Mind you, if only today’s political rulers had been honest and candid enough to tell the masses that there is a shortage of vaccines as we have exported vaccines far and wide to gain brownie points, and that there is also a shortage of the medical bandobast -- as there was no great planning getting done because election campaigns were given the top most priority-- then, perhaps, our people wouldn’t have felt cheated and conned.

Where’s that basic sincerity and earnestness expected from politicians sitting perched up there on those high chairs? It’s missing. Only distractions getting heaped on the hapless masses. I’m certain, now onwards all those distractions will carry nil impact, as we have seen through the bogusness of it all. Facades have been ruptured. Camouflages come off. Lies exposed. Yes, even the short sighted and the naïve are left speechless after seeing through the callous system and the men manning it. Back to those dark ages where nothing seemed to work except muscle power and manipulations.

Tell me, where do I cart my patient if there are no hospital beds or if there are no oxygen cylinders or if I can’t pay for the relevant medicines getting sold in black? Not to overlook the fact that the mantris and santris are sitting locked up in their home confines; severe phobias driving them indoors. They peep out of those confines only and only when they have to shriek at those election rallies, come out with those typical stale speeches with those Muslim-Hindu fare.

I see no sign of relief. In fact, right from 2014 we have been sliding towards a state of hopelessness. Our bodies and souls and psyches in control of the political mafia of the day. Caught that we are between the devil and the deep sea. To put it in a simpler way: caught that we are between the coronavirus and the political virus.

And in such a grim scenario, with death hovering all around, with hunger and helplessness lurking, couldn’t the elections stand postponed? After all, what elections, if our people are dying. Who will be ruling whom and why and for how long? Mind you, if the dead are governed, their souls will cry out in grief and pain: Spare us from these heartless rulers of the day!

Don’t know what lies ahead for those amongst us who are still sitting breathing. Yes, technically alive but with sorrow is spreading out, many are finding the going tough; what, with the lethal combination of the political virus and the corona virus holding sway.