They don't like you, they will never do.
To be honest, they never really
liked you, but even in this time of our biggest existential crisis also, when
you need all of us, every single citizen of India, to back you with all our
might, they don't like you.
They
don't like you when you take a daring decision to lock down a country of 1.3
billion people, to save their own lives. They don't like you when you send
flights to get back your countrymen from the riskiest areas to relative safety;
they say but the migrants had to walk.
They still don't like you as you
send thousands of buses overnight to bring back migrants to their hometowns as of
now; they say migrants are at risk because of the crowding.
Maybe
they are expecting you to arrange one cab per person or build homes for them overnight
with stashes of cash wherever they are? Whatever it may be, but they don't like
you.
As
the head of a developing nation taking a big hit on the economy, you lock down
the country at a time and stage where half the world was roaming around in
gardens and paid a hefty price with their lives.
Where
some so-called heads of powerful nations, the so-called 'buck stops here'
heads, could not even dare to lock down a state, you executed the world's
largest lockdown in the history of mankind. They still don't like you.
They don't like you for the
confidence and morale boosting in your speech that united and channelized an
entire nation of a billion and they don't like you when you repeatedly ask them
with folded hands to stay at home to save their own freaking lives. They don't
like you when you release an economic package for the poor.
Now, sir, these are the
same folks who cannot even figure out how to entertain themselves and their
family of four for 21 days but they expect you to have a perfect solution to
the problem of 1.3 billion people of different needs.
These
are the same folks who may not even have helped their neighbors or maids in
need but they want you to distribute money to the needy equally, without
lapses, overnight.
Some
of them can't attend their offices or meetings on time and some may not even
wake up on time despite alarm clocks but they want you to announce the lockdown
in the morning to give them time to hoard and stash the essentials.
As
if an announcement in the morning will have a different impact, silly! Their
walls are filled with posts on migrants' sufferings but never a single post on
what could be the solution to save lives without collateral damage.
Their walls are filled with
pictures of police charging protesters, even if it was to save their own lives,
but their walls shamelessly avoid posting thousands of Indians stuck in the
Middle-East brought back in Air India planes.
Their
walls shamelessly avoid showing Sikhs doing langar, Muslims opening up their hotels to feed
the needy, Christians opening their hearts to not just humans but also the
suffering dogs on the roads, common men opening kitchens, ordinary people
working with government employees to distribute money, goods, food. Don't be
surprised why. They don't like you.
They
don't like you because for them you are part of a political party and ideology
which they admonish and the fact that you won the majority in Indian elections
twice, which they have neither the capacity nor the maturity to digest.
But
sir, you, you are at fault.
You
don't boast of the fact that our first quarantine establishment of the
Indo-Tibetan Border Police was positioned even before the first corona virus
case in India surfaced.
You
don't publicize how your railway compartments are turned into a quarantine
zone, a first of its kind in the world.
You
don't market all the efforts your billionaire Industrialists in the country are
putting in to ensure the health infrastructure is expanded rapidly to meet the
demands of the present crisis and the future.
You
don't question the protesters gang, the award returnee gang, the afraid gang;
the pseudo-intellectual gang while they are all shamelessly hiding wrapped
their tails around them when the country needs them the most.
Your
government will still serve them all and protect them all, just as any other
citizen of India, but they still won't like you.
And
your face, Sir, it still hides the dilemma and the helplessness you deal with.
I, for sure, see the agony behind that confident, smiling but serious face for
which saving the lives of each and every individual is personal, very personal
and I can see that.
I
can see the trade-off you face, of having to self-destroy the economy for
saving the nerve, the life of this nation, its people, of all races, regions,
religions, economic stature and political orientation, even the traitors.
I
can see this is a fight where winning is not the goal, minimizing losses is.
Suffering and collateral damage are inevitable, and survival is the key. The
economy is revived by living people, not coffins. One never boasts of the
future and I will not either.
The goal is not to win but to just
hang in there and live another day till the virus is defeated by the
scientists, people, doctors or the very nature that brought it up.
Only
time will tell if this was our finest hour but at present, I am positive that
the steps you and your government is taking will save our lives and also our
economy and minimize the losses.
Keep
your spirits high guys, because he is not going down soon enough.
Courtesy- Sarang
