This is Not the Apocalypse: Duh, Go Figure!

By Subhasis Chattopadhyay

Hindus think that it is our Karma which has served us this fit pudding: COVID-19. My Christian friends tell me that it is their sins and the sins of the world which have got us here. And the loonies on both sides think that God has some crazy plan for them which will protect them from COVID-19. And those who are New Age, cool, feel that the earth is healing by killing us. All these are retributive theories which are based on our innate urge to take revenge. The matter is simple: there is a virus which is mutating; no vaccines are in sight, and this too shall pass if only we do the following:

1. Get off social media and turn to your families. Cutting across religions; the problem in India is that we are addicted to everything and everyone except our families. Well, well, well. Now, do you ken my constant reader why the Hindu Scriptures and Christianity stress on the sanctity and irrevocability of marriage? Well, how many times have you slipped up on FaceBook with your old flame while your husband or wife is there pining for you? You want to go out and drink with your friends because you just can no longer take that nagging husband or wife of yours. Better to invoke God and go out and spread the disease. When nobody can be blamed, blame Shiva or Jesus depending on which religion you belong to.

2. Have you bothered reading? Yes, I am talking of good old reading books (e-copies will do please). Here’s a reading list for you. Newspapers are, let us say, temporal. Here today, gone today. Not tomorrow. So as I said download the reading list here. Hindus and Christians forget that there is something called swadhyaya or, Lectio Divina. They also serve who sit still and read.

3. Now, why should you wear a mask? Because you want to gain good Karma or redemption depending where your faith lies. Because you, my reader, maybe an asymptomatic super-spreader. After all, for the sake of charity, you know that you are doing me a favour by wearing that mask though it nearly chokes you. Shiva bhakti is Jiva bhakti or, “whatever you do unto these others, you do unto Me,” said Christ. The best you can do is not to venture out and do us all a favour and wear that mask. It protects others, and you will not die after all. The martyr syndrome is not a very holy thing. If you want to kill yourself, that’s plain clinical depression.

Now, why should you not bring your version of God into this? Because, how dare you? God qua Brahman is not a sadist. God has given you epidemiology; the science of viruses and community medicine. Who am I to say these are not the gifts of Brahman qua Yahweh? Who am I to say that I know better than pulmonologists? Another thing, beware that you don’t say that you are living in apocalyptic times. Neither is this the Book of Revelation unfolding before you. Nor is it that the Kalki Avatar is coming on His horse. It is nothing so fancy and grand. It is just a very powerful epidemic which should not be compared with past epidemics since in the past we were not connected by air so much as we are now. This is just a virus which is thermophilic, highly potent, causing rapid cytokine cascade and leading to multi-organ failure beginning with the lungs in certain groups of people. It is possibly air-borne, and we have to self-isolate till the time we get a vaccine, or the virus goes away. Both of these are not happening anytime soon. So, why not have a romance with your life-partner; why not stop screaming at your kids? Why will you not quit drinking and smoking and going yadda yadda about the world? Be still. Know that God is. Know that Brahman is. And thus by limiting your contact, you weaken the virus. Oh, by the way, stop watching the news. Another time-wasting activity. And for the sake of that God which you want to proclaim; study virology and epidemiology and go to sleep.

Did I say sleep? Yep, I did. Be productive after the pandemic is gone. Now just sleep it out. We are a sleep-deprived lot. Ciao.

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Subhasis Chattopadhyay studied the epidemiology of mental diseases while getting certified as an expert in Major Depressive Disorders. He is not very productive and takes life lightly. He loves music, comparative religions and reads a tonne of horror literature. From 2010 to 2020, July he reviewed for Prabuddha Bharata, the mouthpiece of the Ramakrishna Order. Now he is writing his own book and is hibernating. His reviews have found place in Ivy League Press’ websites and in between he picked up qualifications in Hinduism from the Oxford School of Hindu Studies and the Papal Seminary, Bengaluru. He earns his bread by teaching at the PG and UG Departments of English, Nara Sinha Dutt College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta and located at Howrah, West Bengal. In between, he studies the Bible and Sri Vidya.