Disturbing Times: Renewed Madness and the Vicious Circle of the Absurd!

Photo: phrases.org.uk

The Pandemic, at best, seemed only to have kept the madness of the modern age in a tight leash as long as it raged, creating a mortal fear over the whole of humankind. So, once the humans had discovered enough protection against it and succeeded in keeping it at bay, the modern-day madness seems to have come back with renewed vigor—to get back what they’ve lost over the last two years in real quick time. We can hardly pinpoint anyone to put the blame squarely on; because it’s affected almost every section or individual of the society. Coming to India, once the COVID-19 restrictions were completely lifted life’s started becoming more than normal. From the daily wage-earners and the vendors to the topmost business tycoons—almost everyone started showing extreme hurry to get back what they lost. The local admin authorities, also full of human beings only, joined in too; even the most discreet procedures were thrown out of the window. Tragedies, conflicts, absurdities and so on began unfolding very fast, peaking in the last few days while also giving the virus one more chance to come back.

 

Caught perhaps in a pandemic-induced mad frame of mind the new government in Punjab, the CM being a popular artiste, suddenly withdrew the security cover given to one of the state’s most popular singers who had been under threat from different gangs for various reasons. And tragically, the very next day, singer Sidhu Moose Wala was brutally gunned down in his car by gangsters chasing him in another car. Moose Wala was just 28 and had all the prime future ahead of him. To add to his there’s been a string of targeted murders of locals and non-local citizens in Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists whom the experts describe as micro-level operators or a kind of hybrid terrorism. Greatly disturbing tragedies, anyway.

 

As we mentioned at the beginning, even the minimum public safety measures were thrown away, almost everywhere in the country. And another tragedy happened. Kolkata’s humid heat is known to all who’ve experienced it. The 31^st of May 2022 was one such humid day when the heat was sweaty and unbearable even inside homes, under the whirring ceiling fans or even the struggling ACs. And, on that very day a popular playback singer in Hindi and in several south Indian and other languages, Krishnakumar Kunnath (famous as KK) was invited by local organizers in Kolkata to perform in the gloomy evening in one of the city’s premiere auditoriums, Nazrul Mancha.

 

Reports, dismissed as rumors, say the hall was more than packed as there were no restrictions on controlling entry of the extra hundreds of avid audiences, and that the AC was not functioning properly which is not surprising because we find the ACs getting weaker as the attendees get more and more on various occasions. The singer was seen wiping his sweat away and complaining to the organizers frequently. But, as a professional and for the success of the glamour event, he sang for nearly three hours. Then he felt uneasy complaining of chest pain. Surprisingly, he was taken to his hotel, instead of rushing him to the nearest hospital out of sheer common sense. KK collapsed in his hotel room and was declared dead on finally arriving in a hospital. KK, only 53, died of a heart attack as per the postmortem report. But was there nothing that could’ve triggered it in a person who had no previous history of heart problems?

 

Also perhaps severely affected by the post-pandemic madness, one advertising agency in Mumbai released ads on a male deodorant that directly promote the gang-rape theme even as there’ve been reports of rapes and gang-rapes taking place all over the country almost daily. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has promptly suspended the ads ordering those to be taken out of air everywhere. However, the question remains as to how those horrid ads passed layers and layers of the approval procedures. Or perhaps, it clearly pandered to the ‘tastes’ of a great majority of the stakeholders concerned. The same madness to recover what was lost by hook or by crook.

 

As the latest to happen to the continuing saga of greatly disturbing proceedings, one lady spokesperson of the ruling party (BJP) made some adverse remarks to Prophet Muhammad on a public platform yesterday. One more major communal riot unfolded on the streets of Kanpur as a result. The BJP, obviously concerned by the reactions of Qatar and the greater Arab world, suspended her along with one more male spokesperson for giving provocative speeches. The lady said later that she didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments; she was only pained by the alleged insults to ‘her Lord Shiva’. The other complained of serious threats to his life.

 

And then, the absurd of the absurd! A party that came to power on the strength of its aggressive Hindu nationalism and being condemned as a communal party all the time, the BJP is now accused by some of appeasing the Islamists! Well, we believe in one God or one Creator who may have various forms as per the beliefs of various other religions. We advise people, irrespective of to whatever extent they are being driven by the post-pandemic madness, to desist from fighting for ‘your God’ and ‘our God’ which can only bring us all to the brink, the world making a full circle, probably heading for the End.

 

The megastar Salman Khan today has received a letter threating death to him and his father Salim Khan in the ‘Moose Wala’ way. This could be another ‘vicious circle’ of the singer’s murder involving various probable gangsters of an unknown quantity. While in the US, apart from the mad shootings, there was report of a security issue with President Biden even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has crossed hundred days.