Literary Therapy for Corona Virus

 Literary Therapy for Corona Virus.

The global response to Corona virus has been singularly uniform. It is a mixture of angst, dread, disquietude, distress underscored by helplessness and despair. Despite this universal unease and anxiety, the Corona warriors -the doctors, nurses , paramedical personnel and hospital attendants,  the law enforcing authority and the countless organizations that have volunteered to provide food to the millions, suddenly uprooted from their employment with no means of survival- have been the exception  doing noble  service by their fellow beings.  Their vigil and fight against the lethal virus is a superhuman effort and the whole world is overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for their heroic and valiant endeavour.  They have shown the spirit of humanity that has served the world all these millennia.     

But for the vast majority, it has been a terrifying experience. The virus which in its diameter is between 80 and 120 nm(one nm is 10^-9metre), something of the size of 1/1000^th of the width of a human hair,  has proved  its might  vis-à-vis Man  who, in particular in the last few decades  has been arrogantly striding towards the status of Homo Deus as the conqueror  of the little planet Earth, not to leave out  his efforts to grow human embryos in the laboratory and rivalling  the Creator. What an irony that this  self proclaimed Lord and Master of the world, imperiously exercising his power  over all other created species suddenly finds himself powerless before the grip of an invisible spike of a virus with no means to escape its clutches except by  incarcerating  himself within the four walls of his habitation.  The Overreacher has tumbled before this  infinitesimally micro small organism  in ways similar to his predecessor Faustus about whom Marlowe wrote ‘Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight’ when  he tried to soar high  like the Icarus bird  that flew  near the Sun and got its wings singed. Didn’t Shakespeare say: “like wanton flies are we to the Gods/who kill us for their sport.”?

2020 is according to the Chinese calendar the Year of the Rat. True to this year of the Rat, the self proclaimed Homo Deus is today scampering to find a burrow to hide like a rodent.  Like the Old Macdonald he sees a virus in a sneeze here, in a cough there, in a droplet here and in a leaky nose there, and scampers breathless into his hole, shaking and screaming E-I-E-I-OOOOOOO...  The Corona Virus (CV) has reduced the  Home Deus to the Hollow Man referred to by T.S.Eliot nearly a century ago.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

 Our dried voices, when
 We whisper together
 Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass

 Or rats' feet over broken glass
 In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

 Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
   

The nightmarish question that haunts everyone is how to get out of this hole and when? There is no help visible around except for the invention and arrival of a vaccine.  With the mysterious virus lurking anywhere and everywhere, our movements are paralyzed. Virus, Virus everywhere, not a place to hide! Neither can we be visitors nor can have visitors. Our contact with the world has become virtual and our   only companion, almost our saviour is the Smartphone that   has given us the illusory power that we have the world at our  fingertips.

It is a strange paradox that while remaining paralyzed and immobile and sitting crouched inside our homes for fear of the virus latching to our cells, we cannot arrest the mind from its function- to think. The mind refuses to be stilled and leaps many centuries back to the 14^th C when  the Black Plague consumed one hundred millions of the European population  and  to the Spanish flu, one hundred years back that devoured millions of people in some parts of the globe including Mumbai, but this CV is a Super spreader, far more potent and deadly than any of them because it spares no one in any  part of the globe.

We have all been traumatised by this pandemic. From young to the old, from man to woman, from nation to nation, from continent to continent, Covid19 or CV is almost like the Superpower that is omnipresent and omnipotent. For people like me in their late 70s+, the idea of waiting for a minimum period of 12-18 months for the vaccine to be available is a frightening prospect. I often wonder whether the earlier phase when one was moving about, self tending to one’s needs both within and outside of the house, taking the daily leisurely walk through the park may not return before we tune off forever. Things have changed all too sudden to frighten us that this phase may not be passe^’ for us and we may have to remain incarcerated within the house for the next few years seeking the assistance of others to get our essential needs. Have we reached the last leg of our journey, using Eliot’s lines quoted above, with “paralyzed force, gesture without motion?” For the next generation, the change from a happy go lucky life to one of restraint, discipline and virtual company is a daunting prospect. The warmth of handshake and hugging have to be replaced by ‘namaste’ standing at a distance of one metre. No swinging at the rock concerts, no more watching games and sports except from the screen in your living room, no collective entertainment, but isolated viewing from inside your home, no seminars except webinars, no conclaves other than e-conclaves, no thrill and excitement of face to face meeting and interaction with great speakers, orators and celebrities, no dining out without being overcautious of violating the guidelines of keeping distance, no sharing of meals with friends and families... How to upend the way we had lived all through and accept a new normal, follow new dining etiquettes with a mask on, how to get our make ups done with half of the visage hidden ... the prospect of a new life is unnerving and disconcerting.

The mind refuses to stay quiescent and waits desperately for the Whatsapp messages that give a sense of collective sharing of such worrisome thoughts.  Most of the messages are about ‘do’s and don’ts’ and there is a continuous repetition of the importance of handwashing , facemasking and following the new sneeze etiquette. There are also message giving us free dietary advice with emphasis on our herbs-turmeric,pepper, ginger etc etc. Then come the astrological predictions that give us hope that the CV will go away from India by such and such date when the Rahu-Ketu leave Jupiter and The Sun regains its power that had been dimmed by those two and so on and so forth. Well, we cling to the announced dates of CV exit, as hope is the best antidote for despair. The famous Biblical proverb that Samuel Beckett quotes with his penchant for tongue in cheek comments comes to the Mind: “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when it comes,it is the tree of life”. The prophesied dates come and go while the CV continues to consume more victims everyday. Then there is the message from the Gita where Lord Krishna says that when the world reaches total chaos and disorder, I will come to set it back in order. We wait with hands folded and wiht prayers on our lips” “Lord,forgive our trespasses”. But “nothing happens, no one comes, no one moves and it is awful “ to quote one of the lachrymose tramps in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

But then comes the whatsapp message which is the like the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back. This is  about a pastor in US who defied the Governor’s  stay at home order and got his parishioners to the Church for the Sunday Mass,   becoming the latest victim of CV. The mind fleets back to Albert Camus’ brilliant novel The Plague, that tells the story of the plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The plague rages for months and the city wears a look similar to what we see today. People want to flee the town, but barricades have been put up and they have no escape from the plague. In the midst of this disaster, there is a catholic priest Father Paneloux who attributes the plague to the sins of the people of Oran and asks them to accept it as a case of Sin-Punishment syndrome. But ironically when a seven year old boy dies of the plague, the protagonist, Dr.Rieux lashes out at Father Paneloux wondering what sin the little boy could have committed. The greater irony is the priest himself soon after falls a victim to the plague.

 Camus’ novel has an uncanny resemblance to our present condition. Camus’ is forthright and honest as he does not invest the plague, the suffering and the deaths it unleashed with having a rational meaning. Camus who coined the term Absurd” to signify the meaninglessness of our existence does not provide any moralistic or rational explanation for things that happen beyond human control.  The Plague like the COVID19 is a collective concern for all and calls for a collective effort of the whole humanity to stand up and fight it. There is no guarantee that this  fight will bear success at the end, but the struggle has to be there as it is the only meaningful action left for the humans. Camus’ phrase “enter into a dialogue with the plague” sums up his  optimism in the midst of hopelessness. As a commentator notes “Everyone who chooses to fight the plague, to rebel against death, knows that their efforts increase their chances of contracting the plague, but they also realize they could contract the plague if they did nothing at all. In the face of such a seemingly meaningless choice, between death and death, the fact that they make a choice to act and fight for themselves and their community becomes even more meaningful;(italics mine)  it is a note of defiance thrown against the wind, but that note is the only thing through which someone can define himself.”

The mind does not stop reflecting  as it almost comes to grip with CV, human condition and the spirit of rebellion.  Father Paneloux’ sermon takes the mind back to the Book of Job in the Bible. Job, the most pious man and the beloved son of God is suddenly deprived of all his wealth, family and status and is turned into a leper, ostracized and banished from his town.  He does not know that God had a wager with Satan who cynically  asked God  whether Job his beloved son will continue to be upright and blameless if he (God) denied him His grace and instead deprived him all his bounty and tormented him with ill health and suffering. Initially Job says  “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord”^. But  when Job experiences immense physical suffering and mental anguish for the inexplicable reason of God’s denial of grace to him, he questions God as to what sin he had committed to be denied His benevolence. God refuses to enter into a dialogue with Job, but His Voice thunders asking him to follow him through a walk. God points to him the Sun, the Moon, the Stars and the sky  , the plants, the trees, and the flowers, and asks him if he had created this universe.  He asks Job  “Where were you  on the day the universe was created? Where were you  when the architecture of the  universe was designed with  seas and  continents?”  God continues to admonish Job saying  when everything was given to him, he never asked the reason for the bestowal of such a bounty. But when they were taken away, he seeks god’s explanation as to why it had happened. Job realizes his mistake  for seeking answers to happening that were beyond  his making. He was neither the Creator nor the Preserver nor the Destroy erof the vast universe.. The Book of Job is all about inexplicable human suffering. Its portrayal of one man's sufferings, his struggle for faith and understanding –all these mirror our own present experiences. There is a Power – God or Fate or Destiny or the Absurd as modern existentialists describe it  or CV that we have in our midst today, call what you will, thou shall not find answers to the whys  and whats and wheres and whens , but develop strength to accept it  not in abject surrender, but in stoic acceptance of what you have no control over and fight for survival even if the fight is more a fight for a loss and not for a win.

 ‘Seek not, thou shall not find

Ask not, there shall be no answer

Reason not, thou hast no control

Accept with grace and with no questioning,

Fight  even it is for a loss and not for a win  

Therein lies meaning of life and human dignity.