The paradox
of life is most of the time- and in particular in present times with the
pandemic lurking everywhere waiting to let itself in- we have nothing much to
do except to attend to the same dull daily routines while the mind refuses to
stay quiescent whether waking or sleeping, up and about or sitting and vacantly
looking at the ceiling. The paradox is the mind is passively active and
actively passive as we go through the lock-in period.
The stay at
home order is one way of keeping the Corona virus stay away from infecting our
healthy cells, especially those in our lungs. It does breed some comfort that
we have barred CV from crossing the lakshman
rekha we have drawn for ourselves. We have a distinctive advantage over CV
as we can see its lethality all round but not for CV as CV cannot cross our
threshold and enter our homes. But CV
has its last laugh as it has taken hold of our minds to the extent that all our
thoughts, feelings and emotions are secured by it. The CV refuses the mind to
let go of it and has latched on to our thought process. Thus our minds are
quarantined within the folds of the Corona virus.
Anxiety, fear
and a fervent hope of a vaccine to release everyone from its vicious grip swirl
through the active mind currently in a state of limbo. “ Nothing to be done,
but wait”- these eerie words of the tramps in Waiting for Godot keep
echoing in the mind. The tramps in Samuel Beckett’s play engage themselves inventing new activities to pass the indeterminate time before
Godot arrives- though there is no certainty that he will arrive. My mind turned to the migrants
marching in the hot sun, trudging through highways and railway tracks for
thousands of kilometres to reach their homes in remote areas far from the
madding cities. Like Beckett’s tramps
they are trying to find some meaning to their hopeless existence of being without
a job, without money, without food, shelter and in some cases without footwear
but imbued with hope they will reach their destination i.e., find their Godot.
They are not deterred by the scorching sun; they are not scared of the Corona Virus, they are not daunted by the infinitely long
distance to cover because they have one single goal to be back home where they
belong to.
In the
comfort of my four walls, I reflect on what goals are left for me to chase in a
post pandemic world. I envy the migrants – if for nothing else, at least for the
indelible fact that they are not waiting for a Godot to save them- neither to the
Government with all the resources at its command nor its critics with their
ingy-mingy effort to provide a semblance of assistance to them They have
identified their Godot and have decided to march ahead.
I wonder
where is my Godot who I should wait for.
I do not want to acknowledge the truth that there is really no Godot to wait
for. But I desperately need a Godot to sustain myself, to give some
meaning for my existence. I know I am
not the odd one, everyone wants a Godot, an anchor for their life.
Socrates’ wisdom flashed on me: “To find yourself, think for yourself.” This is what I
should do while locked in. I have
to reinvent myself to step into a new world with a new normal. The old world of
narcissistic arrogance where my goal was
to work towards savouring to the full ‘God’s Plenty’ with no thought of sharing
it with fellow beings has been devastated by the invisible microorganism. How
true is Abba’s song
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world.
I have my bank balance. Where do I go to spend my money that
I have accumulated? Parties, theatres, sports, entertainment –( they are now to
be watched sitting at 2 meter’s distance
from others and I should avoid shouting
and shrieking in excitement lest I should sprinkle droplets on fellow
spectators)- have become things of the past. Nothing shall be real; everything
will turn digital. Watch all sports and games, theatre and dance, cinemas and
concerts twice removed- from the world of reality to the make believe world of
the theatre and then to the digital world. We are changing. Everyone says it is going to
be the new normal. Change is universally pervasive. It is said “there
is never the same pus from one second to the next”. So to cling to the old
world is to remain in creative falsehood. We must change with the world which
is constantly changing. The real world is the
world of ideas and that world is unchanging and eternal, to borrow the
wisdom of Plato. That is the world we have to create- what I call the world of creative
truth for us..
My thought process now begins to accelerate. I realize more profoundly the truth in
Socrates’ saying.- “ think for yourself” We have for long been in a post-idea
world where to think and speak have been taken over by instant ,inane tweets. We
have given thinking a long holiday. Socrates had made the famous statement “It is
better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. “
John Stuart Mill in his book on Utilitarianism had gone one step further
and said “And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is
because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the
comparison knows both sides” (Utilitarianism,
Mill). If I am a human being, I need to understand the other side, the plight
of the migrants. Instead of seeking to apportion the blame for their plight on
A or B or C..., I must find out how to help them in the post pandemic world.
One of the
most beautiful things I have seen in England is its green countryside. Nature has
also similarly endowed our land with
rivers and mountains, lakes and grasslands, with flora and fauna. Some migrants
have returned home. Others are on the move. Sooner than later, they will settle
down to a quiet life away from the humdrum of cities and towns.
Let it be the mission of every NGO, of everyone of
us who can either physically contribute or financially contribute to develop the
villages with the help of the migrant
returnees. Let Mission Smart Village be the concerted goal of all those who enjoy
the comforts of a lockdown today (I am deliberately not looking to the
government and politicians for this mission). John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice has spoken about ‘
the veil of ignorance’ which we deliberately put on to conceal some disturbing thoughts.
With incisive understanding, a Kashmiri Scholar Irshad Rashid writes:
“ in the vein of Rawlsian veil of ignorance, imagine this: You knew a few
months in advance that a deadly pandemic is about to strike and you were asked beforehand
to design a political system for your society to deal with this disaster. You are
however deprived of certain information about yourself... you don’t know if you
will turn out to be rich or poor, old or young, healthy or sick... migrant
labourer or landlord and so on.” The truth is we do not know. This is the
veil of ignorance to be uncovered to ensure that we take both sides- for we do
not know which may be our lot –the positive and the negative and work for
fairness of both the sides. So we must work for a society that takes care of
the poor and the marginalised in the villages and ensure their welfare, education,
healthcare. The plight of the migrants has shown that we who are the
beneficiaries of the work done by the migrants must in return ensure that they are
also guaranteed the basic rights that we enjoy. In the most piercing way, the
pandemic has shown what Wordsworth had said “ we are all bound each to each by natural
piety”- a natural reverence for life around us. Let us unveil the cover of
ignorance and work in whatever way possible to execute a new social covenant based
on the principles of equity and justice. Let us work to build schools,
hospitals and houses in villages, let us educate the poor to be self
sufficient, let us upskill them, let us preserve the pristine purity of the rural places while providing them modern standards of good
living.
Thanks to Irshad Rashid’s
article “From Behind the Veil” my veil of ignorance is uncovered.
No comments:
Post a Comment