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| Largest Lockdown in History ! - India goes standstill for 21 days! |
Hartal ! For the uninitiated, let me explain what Hartal is all about. It is a kind of strike when people of a region willfully or forcefully stay back at home without reporting to work, closing all the shops, stopping the public and private transport, virtually bringing all human activities to a stand-still. It is usually celebrated as 12-hours, 24-hours or 48-hours event as a mark of protest by humans against humans for humans! Theoretically it is full of humanism.
Growing up in Kerala gave me ample opportunity to experience this event which used to happen here at the drop of a hat! Trust me. I am not kidding! I have lost count of how many of those I celebrated! Slowly I became an ardent and unpublished fan of good Hartals and started to appreciate those blissful days of solitude.
Few of my professional friends, well-educated, well-certified, working in multinational Incs, used to analyse the revenue loss from Hartals and educate me on it. However, my narrow-nature-centric mind never for a moment twitched in admiring the beauty of Hartal! In my dictionary, Hartal was and is a collective effort done by humans, unintentionally, unconsciously and involuntarily for our environment and ecosystem! Yes, you know, those are the only days I used to feel the true richness of Nature around me – freshness in air wherever I go, chirp of birds on the roads and the profound, clear sky without those polluting fumes! It made me write on how “Everybody loves a good Hartal”, few years back J
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On Hartal days, I had that habit of taking a walk through the otherwise busiest of highways nearby. Taking a deep breath and a big pause I would take a long look at those sedentary streets, relishing how my walk has become cakewalk, thanks to Hartal! At the epitome of my thoughts I used to imaginatively wish – “Hartal should be a worldwide celebration and it should be celebrated at least once every month by all major cities and even minor towns of this world. The celebration should be simply staying indoors. No human activity or human interventions to the surroundings, allowing the rest of the species in our ecosystem to take control and be themselves that day! This world is not just for humans, every living being around us do have their own share of right on it, isn’t it? Let us celebrate a world of cooperation and coexistence!”
But as soon as I come out of my imaginative, sublime trance, I used to be slapped by the reality – “Hello Divs, have you gone insane or what? What do you think the cities are for? They never sleep, you know! In cities people work hard and toil the whole day, and celebrate harder in their evenings and night. Not like you simpletons, who gets content with what you get. This world is for the city-smart ones who know how to do things and get things done, got it? you moron!”
Yet, I used to discuss some of my eco-friendly imaginations with few of my easier friends – “Aren’t human beings on a self-destructive track? Don’t you think humans are speeding too much in life? They are chasing and hunting themselves! They are losing themselves! Why this contention? Why this competition? Crushing the species below, savaging own species around, boasting as the greatest ones, thinking as one who can survive on their own - where are they rushing ?! In their unquenchable quest for power brewed in luxury, greed, ego, lust and hatred what are they trying to conquer? What are they trying to gain by profusely hurting our Mother Earth and polluting our Nature around.
One of my wise friend used to tell me like this – “You know Divs, Earth and Nature has seen a lot, a lot more than what we can imagine. We are thinking too much by knowing too little and placing our thoughts on a very short timeline. Earth has seen species very powerful like Dinosaurs and also has seen them get dusted at some point in the past. Humans didn’t even existed then, right?. So, if Nature really wish, in a blink it can make this human race vanish from Earth! It’s just a childsplay for it! When we humans exploit and commoditize our Earth beyond a limit this may quite really happen”
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| John Chettan, Security of an Apartment Building in his seventies, still commute to work on his bicycle |
Fast-forward. I am still alive, here on Earth, in this month of March of the year 2020. Nature has blinked for a moment sending jitters to humans - Covid-19! I am sitting stunned watching the happenings around the world. That old imaginative trance of mine has come into reality in a very absurd way which I never even thought to happen so in my lifetime! The cities which never sleep, the likes of New York, London, Paris, Rome, Mumbai and which not - all are shutting down out of fear, for existence. Not just cities, the states and countries themselves are locked up and in a stand-still. My own Nation is on a stand-still for 21 days – probably the largest lock-down in entire history - offices closed, malls closed, theaters closed, schools closed, temples closed, churches closed, mosques closed, private-transport closed, public-transport closed, flights closed, trains closed, festivals closed, marriages closed, even death ceremonies are almost closed to death! There are police guarding roads, hospitals guarding the sick. Unnecessary outing will end up with stick from police. All humans are locked in their tents for saving each other! If my trance asked world Hartal for a day, this is a complete world-wide stand-still-lockdown stretching to weeks and who knows probably for months! With a microbe, which the human eyes can’t even see, the Nature has given a tight slap on the human race - all with a blink! The pain inflicted by that slap is deep – more than 4 lakh people across the continents and countries are infected with close to 18,000 losing their life. It is crushing and the human race will have to dig deep to get out of this painful hole. Me? Yes, I am also locked up in my home with the same uncertainty of what Nature is planning to do further with us!
On the other side, as humans struggle, Nature is rejoicing and showing how it can balance back quickly as soon as humans stop their callousness! The pollution levels have went down across the cities of the world, rivers and lakes are cleaner and there is sense of serenity and sanity in the surroundings. A friend from Bangalore messaged me – “dust is very less now, even in noon, I can hear birds chirp from our balcony, all living beings except human race are enjoying!” It is a give back time to all of us for what we have done and what we continue to do – destroying the forest cover mercilessly, polluting the air and water insensitively, cutting down the trees without any ill feelings and what not! What we go through now is a reminder of Nature’s decree - that every species has equal right for survival. Also, this is an opportunity for the humans to evolve out as better species on Earth, which I doubt they would! However, this experience has sliced up a renewed resolve within me - to be humble forever, to be down to earth and instead of “accumulating life” make it an “accommodating life”!”
When I told yet another friend on how this blink of Nature has become a boon for the ecosystem, he rebuked – “When you or your family are in it, then you will know the heat. You will not see any ecosystem or greenery then – you will find yourself struggling to be saved by some human only.” I kept silent and didn’t give a reply. Within me, my narrow-nature-centric mind was confiding to myself - “Nature has every right to make my life difficult, cut off my job, cut short my life or simply destroy me without any repair. For, I am born in this insatiable human race. But I do have absolute faith - Nature is not as heartless as humans and will pardon everyone, like a Mother pardons its child and through this pandemic, Mother Earth is offering the humans a final chance to save themselves from a potential climate catastrophe!”
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Foot Notes:
1. Air quality improves in over 90 cities in India reports "The Hindu", 30.Mar.2020 - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/air-quality-improves-in-india-amid-lockdown/article31234638.ece
2. Air pollution and CO2 fall rapidly as virus spreads - BBC - 19.Mar.2020
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