The deathly trail of the second Covid wave is a settlement of our Karmic account. But God is kind; and it’s never too late to mend our ways, says POONAM BAJAJ
A very famous quote by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh resonates so well with the crisis the world and India is facing after the Covid-19 onslaught. Says the 94-year-old monk and peace activist: “Impermanence is the constant transformation of things. Without impermanence, there can be no life. Selflessness is the interdependent nature of all things. Without interdependence, nothing could exist.”
The genesis of the Covid chaos was November 2019. Within a few months in March 2020, the global village as we love to call ourselves got segregated into pockets. Borders were sealed and aircrafts stood still like lifeless monoliths. A complete lockdown was observed in most parts of the world.
India was lucky to have escaped lightly in comparison to other countries in the first Covid wave. So, we began patting ourselves on our back and magnanimously exported vaccines, oxygen and medicine, puffing our chests with pride.
It was so flattering to our national pride as the world was applauding India for tackling the pandemic so well. So Diwali was celebrated like any other year. People started partying again, especially the so-called intelligent, educated ones. Weddings, too, were celebrated. We were really having a ball.
And since we were all in an ecstatic celebratory mood socially, hey! why should the religious folks be left behind ― not to forget the politicians! So political rallies and religious events like the Kumbh Mela seemed like just an extension of the social hullabaloo.
We let our guard down, while blowing our bugles of conquest and self-reliance. So when the second wave struck with ferocity in April 2021, we were literally caught napping.
The first wave should have taught us lessons in terms of hygiene, (over) consumption and spirituality. Instead, all kinds of silly and childish WhatsApp messages were doing the rounds such as ‘lifestyle is expensive, living is not’ ― whatever that means. There were also insensitive jokes on domestic helps.
Sadly, we all collectively showed lack of sensitivity and maturity. When my younger daughter was a teenager, she once told me, “Mom if we all look after ourselves, we could surmount so many problems.” How very sensible of her.
One thing we should have all learnt in the first Covid wave was to take care of ourselves, our near and dear ones and the people around us. In this global village of ours, aren’t we all so interdependent? By putting ourselves at risk, we are exposing others to unknown hazards. Isn’t it so?
One thought that really comes to mind is that mankind tends to learn nothing from their mistakes and selfishness. That is the core cause for all our miseries. I see a lot of people around who don’t want to disclose that they have Covid-19 for fear that their domestic helps will leave their work and they will be left stranded, as they are so addicted to the luxury of house helps.
The ruthlessness of the second wave has taught us a lot of lessons; but the learnings have come with a heavy cost in terms of deaths of our loved ones and close friends. The trauma may take decades, even a lifetime or more to heal. The closest term that one can use to describe it are the words, Mahamari Pralay. This means epidemic, holocaust.
What we give to the universe comes back to us sooner or later. It’s Karma.
So, let us accept the deathly trail of the second Covid wave in India as a settlement of our Karmic account.
But God is kind. And it’s never too late to mend our ways.
This hymn now reverberates in my head and rings so true:
Sabka mangal, tera mangal
Mera mangal, sabka mangal
Hoye re
This famous bhajan strikes a chord and I have taken to hearing it all the time. It encapsulates what all of us should be doing at all times: praying for the wellbeing and good health of all.
Watch below a prayer entreating the Almighty to shower his mercy on mankind.
Poonam Bajaj, a former school teacher is a proud housewife and home entrepreneur dealing in artefacts and exclusive saris.
(Featured Image: Dean Moriarty from Pixabay)
True to the spirit of the write up, we each of us have to not only cautiously work for, but genuinely pray for well-being and welfare of all when the mahamari has taken in its tight grip one and All.
The greatest lesson for mankind to learn today, if at all we can learn from this malady today is that we have completely destabilised Nature’s balance with our let loose progressive mindset today and paying its bounce back with loss of precious lives everyday.
In spite of everything Covid-19 is teaching a lesson to make a course correction in our life, living and more so our mindset which has lost its pristine pure naturalness in the wake of modernistic lifestyle mindlessly acquired within last one or two decades.
I completely agree with you, we are paying for our karmic debt for which no men no God to be blamed!
Yes, now is the time to mend our ways!
तेरा मंगल, मेरा मंगल, सबका मंगल होए रे… सबका मंगल होए रे…