Verbatim with 'the Virus'

It so happened that 'Parolok Babu' was very furious with the ongoing pandemonium of the pandemic and he hated the word ‘Corona’ like anything, more so now since it has caused him the utmost loss of all…

Couldn’t hold on to his anger and shouted out – “You look here what you have done?”. “Yes..yes you Mr Corona, I mean whatever you are Mr or Mrs or God knows what… hey, I am talking to you.”

Amidst a host of other similar tribes (some of whom were kind of coming out again into the public, post lockdown) Corona was initially reluctant to reply but now that even the gender was challenged had to reply. “Yes, I can hear you Parolokji – why are you shouting at me like this? Pls speak respectfully or else you definitely now know, if I get angrier what will happen!”

Let’s take it, for the necessity and paucity of time that Corona’s gender is male and will address as Mr Corona alias ‘Corona Viru(s)’ as he now loved naming himself owing to the locale vocabulary of the state where he has created the maximum chaos.

Parolok Babu, once a rich and powerful person of his locality has never been a man who follows the norms or gives in easily and now that he is kind of hanging midway between heaven and hell, he’s furious to the core. He again vented out “You know Corona Viru because of you I died ok that was one thing to fight with you. Now over that, they have completely restricted entry on all the ‘Tri-loks’. Heaven (swarglok) anyways I am not entitled to I know but even ‘Patal-lok’ – has a new web-celebrity Police Officer who’s not allowing me there as well…what to do…getting so hung up?”

“Generally, once you die people come to pay their last respect and here my own family refused to take my body for cremation plus no proper rituals followed – how am I to get my ‘Grand-Finale Mukti’ (freedom)?”

Parolok Babu didn’t wait for an answer and exclaimed again – “You know Mr Corona, when a person dies here, even the biggest of his enemies and adversaries come and say such nice things, so much of praises, mourning for the departed soul - hearing which the departed soul also becomes emotional…. Have lost all those last precious moments to cherish because of you…..! But instead, what do I get - that my body found lying somewhere, picked up and shunted in a truck for cremation. I kept shouting, hey you - look people pls show some respect – it’s my body – I am ‘the Mr Parolok Babu’….no one listened, they just passed by me, as if they couldn’t see me, such audacity...uff....!!”

“Since the funeral was not being done properly, my ‘atma’ is now all over the place – thirsty spirit and hungry also, God knows whether they will do my ‘Shraddh’ or not, have no idea what will happen to all my wealth and the properties, even the new bottle of the imported ‘Chivas Regal’ is lying untouched in my cabinet, issh…issshh… what a loss …. Couldn’t enjoy at all and now completely stuck here, because of you…” some choicest words followed from Parolok Babu’s vocab, which mostly didn’t bother Mr Corona as he got accustomed to it nowadays. He has learnt at least those keywords or sentences, as is normally learnt when you are forced into new demographics and languages.

Now having enough of the onslaught Corona butted out – “What to do!! YOU some of you, YOU human would want to eat everything that moves or flies on earth, either cooked or even raw and then without being massively enforced, will not want to maintain basic hygiene also…is that my or any of my brotherhoods fault?”

Corona now had enough of Big-Data and kept saying, “What did you do the other day, after sending your staffs early in the morning to stand in line in front of the neighbouring liquor shop, you still couldn’t keep patience for a chilled bottle of ‘my namesake’. Putting on a huge face musk how you jostled in the crowd and when you got the stuff, your attitude was, as if just won the KBC of this year..huh..where was 'social distancing, you didn’t even carry the sanitizer with you…now lamenting on your condition.”

Parolok Babu accepted his fault and just kept quite this time. Really, that was a wrong thing to do, just for a few bottles of beer taking risk of life…no..no…not worth it but alas what to do now.

“Look at the changes you all have made now, hasn’t it improved a lot of things for good?”. Corona Viru went on - “Many of you had taken so much in life for granted, basic stuff taught in your schools were forgotten, even you are now being taught the proper way to sneeze isn’t that lessons learnt for you.?”

“Look at nature all around getting better all around, Green-House effect etc reducing for the good and imagine you guys had to be locked down for that – my fault? Mr Parolok Ji pls answer me…why are you quite?”

This time Corona Viru was on no rampage – “Some of you guys used to complain of ‘Work-Life balance, now you are complaining of something as like the WFH issues. Many said that they don’t have time for taking care of certain things in life and now that you have time are you being constructive in your thoughts and actions?”

“You Mr Parolok Babu – had enough in life to go with but still you kept wanting more and more, by any means only profits and money was your motivation and even the charity you did was to get you the support you needed to cover-up your shady intents…am I wrong?” “Now you are lamenting of not having enough time to enjoy and be happy, well Paralokji…being happy is not about having more ‘material-possessions’ but ‘meaningful relations’ or else you wouldn’t have been worried now about such trifle thing as your final rites, what say?”

Though pushed into a bit of a back foot, Paralok Babu as I said is not a man to take things lying and replied – “Yes, now I am understanding the futilities of many things in life but that doesn’t mean that’s no justification of how you Corona Viru have made things so difficult, look at the state of people all over the world, the socio-economic state, business and job scenario and so much of hardships all around, Why?”

Corona Viru – now laughed, “You mean to say that everything was very hunky-dory before I came in. By the way, why is it that you have so many ‘Migrant Labourers’ all over the place, who have to leave their families behind just for work and survival, you have an answer to that?”

Corona looked at Paralok Babu and groaned- “I will be tamed someday soon, vaccines will come and you guys will learn to get better at things as you have always done but tell me will it resolve your issues at the international borders, will it ensure peaceful and healthy co-existence – as you have seen how the entire world gets affected by a single event at times!”

“Will you be able to make sense of better and enhanced life for all – not just the selected few, will you be able to provide adequate and quality jobs for all graduates and post-graduates, after they have toiled and put in their hard work and money for their education? What about the people who were forced to give up everything and return back to their home? What plans you guys have?”

Paralok Babu did not have much to say now as he was only standing in the long queue, waiting to get the new ‘Atmaadhar card’ and ‘Pan-demic card’ for entry into the next phase, post all the necessary checks into the new realms of reality…oh sorry, unreality or maybe ‘spirits-tuality’, whatever. Who cares…!