Much before the lockdown (25th March, 2020) in India, Parul Sharma of Sweden had discussed about the coronavirus disease. My friend Henrik Sadlowski from Germany had arrived in Varanasi on Holi with his friend Peter. During the final five days of my public life preceding the imposition of lockdown, they stayed here. The two are medical experts at the Charité Medical University in Berlin. Henrik is getting married in June and had come to invite me and Shruti Ji for the happy occasion.
However, I apprised him that my passport renewal process was stuck at the Lucknow office, owing to a conspiracy hatched by an adversary in Delhi, and since India was also likely to impose a lockdown, it would be difficult for me to attend his marriage. Nonetheless, I spent a memorable evening together with Peter, Henrik, Kabir and Shruti.
Around that time, we had already started the practice of social distancing and sanitising. Shruti Ji was particularly delighted to watch a cleanliness-averse and austere Lenin washing his hands several times a day.
Even before the lockdown, I had been practicing self isolation. Post 2015, I had grown rather habitual of isolation after I was implicated in a fabricated case. At that time, I had spent nearly three months without a mobile phone and drawn myself closer to transcendental rituals. The affection towards isolation proves that we possess the quest for knowledge. However, self discovery is possible only when we attain the point of seclusion even amidst chaos, conflict and outdoors. This is eternal ‘shamshan vairagya’.
Prime Minister and Varanasi Member of Parliament (MP) Shri Narendra Modi announced the lockdown in his televised addressal, while also dwelling upon the severity of the coronavirus situation. The fact is these are extraordinary times. I got the opportunity to spend the time with Shruti and my family.
While Shruti and I have been involved in social work, my parents and all of us are getting food from the our collective kitchen. All this while, our colleague Mangla Prasad has been implicated in a fake case for raising the matter of the mushar community children eating ‘akri’ (type of grass) to beat hunger, while Resident Editor of Jansandesh Times Vijay Vineet was served a notice by the district magistrate. At the same time, Abhishek Srivastava, who lives out the quintessential Varanasi lifestyle in Delhi and Noida, has been bewildered by the corporate work culture akin to how Kashi has treated Mahadev.
The problem of starvation and migrant labourers has only worsened during the lockdown. Many including communists, socialists, Congressmen and social organisations are arranging for food for them. These developments have changed my perspective on life. It appears to me as if the world has shrunk inwards, yet stretched into an expansive form. What I mean is that the ambit of my wander has reduced, while other elements are also shortening.
The star of many a marvelous film and man with a glowing heart, Irrfan Khan, has bid adieu to the world. I spent three long hours of meditation in his memory. It evoked a rush of emotions in my mind, as if nature was conversing with me; the Creator trying to communicate that humans have polluted nature for their personal gain and selfish interests, waged wars and indulged in violence, committed atrocities on women, exploited people. And today, a tiny virus has caused a global lockdown.
While professing religion and conversing with religious canons, we’ve created castes in the interests of a few people, which have worked contrary to the ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family) belief, and instead, filled people with narrow-minded disposition of ‘our people, your people’. An accomplished person once observed that the seeker Mahatma Buddha had attained the same wisdom – the essence of Dhamm (Buddhist equivalent of religion) and the eighth path of enlightenment to life – during meditation.
Even the ideological opponent of Buddha, Adi Shankaracharya, received wisdom from a ‘chandaal’ (one who cremates bodies). Yet, you have forgotten these gems and are selling humankind for your petty benefits. Where is the power of your nuclear arsenal? Has the tiny virus has forced it into lockdown as well?
The meditation ‘diya’ (flame) had started to dither and my mind was restless. I was nursing the feeling of angst against profiteers and hypocrites. Then suddenly, the ‘batuk bhairav’ commanded for concentrating on the Maa. I started to recite ‘क्रिं क्रिं’ (or kreem kreem) mantra.
Mother started to tell me that I wear a rosary of men’s skull figurines, since men’s greed has, over the ages, committed atrocities against nature and women, and spread wars and violence for attaining pelf and power. For this reason, the Mahadev has come unto me and eased my resentment so that I could demolish the vanity of men folks.
However, Mahadev’s beloved Kashi is today left to witness the spread of market forces against the Lord’s essence of फक्कड़पन (candor). I felt as if I was under the influence of liquor, but it was not so. At that moment, the energy replied that today, people are rubbing liquor (alcohol) in their hands to fight the coronavirus.
After the meditation, I was reflecting on why Mahadev married for love, yet killed Daksh Prajapati, who personified the vanity of perfection? Why did he choose the cremation ground? The path of the Mahadev and His consort was a revolt against the suppression of personal dignity and liberty of the people because of casteism and patriarchy.
Till the time subjugation of people under the influence of their perfection-bred vanity and atrocities against nature does not end for good, we shall only be able to fight the symptoms and not subdue the virus.
Note: The article was originally published (in Hindi) here.