The Conundrum

Four months is what it takes for a foetus to be a ‘life’. A life with endless possibilities. But it still needs to hibernate for another 5 months. A lot can go wrong in these few months but it generally doesn’t. Our COVID baby is now into its fourth month. The fathers and grandparents are taking great care of the mother. To ward off the metaphor early in the discourse, the former refer to the national leaders and the latter are its working people. Everyone knows that this baby was fathered by China but we are like Pandu from the Mahabharata. Pandu was impotent, the gods had fun with Pandu’s wives and five boys were born. Panda had nothing to do with their arrival, yet they were called ‘Pandavas” or Pandu’s children. No one ever asked the mothers what they want. Neither did Pandu, nor did the Gods. So following the age old paradigm the national leaders don’t ask their people what they want to do with the rape-child of China, COVID-19.

The mothers have to stay safe even if it means she is chained to the bed. What if she cannot eat, she has to be safe. COVID has to be delivered safely or else hell shall break loose. The learned and the powerful say that it might end humanity. But it was the mothers who ran the household. Brought and cooked food. As usual they ate last or often didn’t. There are no functioning households with the mothers chained and starving. But China has unleashed the most deadly rape. No one dares to abort. No one can see or feel the foetus COVID. What if they don’t abort and kill the mothers? What if the blood spills from every mother and no one can contain. No one knows what the baby COVID looks like, yet every entertainer has unleashed their imagination. Some say it will be as bad as other rape-children gifted by China and others. Some say this one might be worse.

So what if households are dry and mothers are chained up. The rest are having a blast. They only do business with COVID now. Newspapers have shrunk in size as there are no crimes, movies, sports or political drama to report. Television and social media have no time to sleep or eat. Too busy trying to figure out the biological father of COVID, what COVID likes or it doesn’t and most importantly whether it will be a boy or girl or neither. Courses are being held educating people on COVID and certificates are being issued. But didn’t you just tell me you had no idea about this foetus! Then what is this course all about? I had asked. The answer was blunt. When have we ever done courses to know the truth. All that we need to do is pretend that we know the truth.

Researchers claim to be working on finding out machines to see the real COVID. Some are promising contraception against Such rape. Of course they cannot prevent the mothers from getting raped. Some of these doctors have decided that India is the best place to do their research as NewYork is getting too sweaty. No one has any clue about the monster brewing inside, but there is no ban on pretention. The grandfathers of every household, of every hair colour, black, white, orange or mixed, are often appearing at the doorsteps of the mothers and reassuring them about the fortitude of starvation. The mantra~ “starve to death but don’t die trying to move around with the unknown foetus”. You might die but more importantly the rest of the household, who are busy on twitter and Instagram, appearing on television, webinars and webcasts, might suffer. You might be hungry but they are busy.

As the world has come to a standstill, there are too few deaths from road accidents or crime. The sky is more blue than ever. The grass has never been greener. The world has never been more visibly divided by an invisible enemy amongst haves and have nots. Some are dying from COVID, some are dying in trying to save others from COVID and some are dying of boredom. I do not know if we will be more knowledgeable after 9 months- will there be a spontaneous abortion, will there be full term delivery of a normal child after chaining down every mother of the household for nine months or will there be a life threatening post-pregnancy bleeding! But one thing is sinking inside me- nine months down the line, more would die of starvation, malnutrition and other deadly diseases. That sinking feeling makes me urge the world to wake up to what we know will go wrong and not chain and starve those who feed us, fearing the unknown.