I made it safe till 2020 in this strange world. I must be some other kind of lucky… Then again, Covid-19 happened and it moved me a little. I was disturbed, concerned and petrified – all at the same time. This virus, disease, illness, epidemic - call it as you may - is sweeping the world and sending all man-made systems right to where they belong: into an ultimately trivial place in front of the vagaries of Nature.
At the moment, we are having a lot of that Nature’s carnage taking the shape of crammed hospitals, out of breath patients and body bags in the thousands. It’s as if Nature is reclaiming its capacity to re-establish balance and screaming “Beware!” in all our ears.
However, there is an unsung message even amidst this scene of desolation. This act of re-establishing balance, of seeking correction, of righting wrongs can also be seen as Nature’s 'natural' order - Creation, Maintenance and Dissolution. Hence, since we are facing the ultimate destiny, we might as well take it in patiently, take it in beautifully.
There is a price to pay for every animal that was caged, every animal that was killed. We are living an Orwellian nightmare that is of our own doing. We might as well take it in calmly, beautifully and honestly, conceding that so long as we don’t realise the folly of our wet markets, live animal fetiche and cosily packaged slaughterhouse products, we will have to bear with Nature’s wrath.
You see, the problem persists till the lesson is learnt. This might be a different kind of wake-up call – one in which bats come to be seen as equally destructive as humans. It’s ironical, insidious even, that only when they become symbols of “equal destruction” that we sit up and notice they even exist.
Till we really do, we might even suffer beautifully….
Copyright: Nithin Prakash Gukhool
Image credit: The Creative Cafe
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