THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES (IV)- EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY

   Sex has been on my mind these last three weeks. Not of course as a practitioner or a voyeur of the amorous art, but in a purely academic, dispassionate and distanced frame of mind. Somewhat like that old bull let loose in a paddock, full of young bulls and cows happily servicing each other 24X7, including gazetted holidays. The old bull would have no part of this frolicking, till one of the younger ones asked him why? He replied: " I'm from the World Bank, I only have Observer status." Ditto for me, minus the World Bank pension. And I have a few observations to share with you about sex in the era of the lock down.

   You could not have failed to notice that these days the govt. and its various specialists have been advising us on every aspect of life under quarantine: how to wash your hands, how to sneeze or wipe your nose, how to stand in a queue, methods for disinfecting the house, how to avoid depression, even how to beat pots and pans to the tune of Saare jahan se achha . But not one has any advice on whether or not it is safe to have sex during lock down, and whether social distancing includes sexual distancing- if so how so, if not why not? I've rechecked the Prime Minister's Seven Steps three times but find no mention of it; Baba Ramdev has maintained a stoic silence on the subject; the ICMR has given it a skip, even Mr. Kejriwal only coughs ( into his right sleeve) when you ask him about it. The only sensible related advice was conveyed to me by a neighbour who went to a doctor because he was having trouble breathing. Ruling out COVID, the doc advised him:  "Avoid any excitement- have sex with your wife only." Which may explain why I haven't had a heart attack yet but sheds no light on why the Nitty Gritty Ayog is silent on the subject.

   In sharp contrast, the Belgium Health Minister lost no time in drawing her own Laxman rekha: all "non-essential" sexual activity was banned, along with wife swapping, threesomes and orgies, according to a report in the Worldnewsdailyreport.com. " Essential sex" with the wife ( one's own) was permitted. We may however have a problem in adopting this in India. For one, wives may object to including " essential sex" in the daily menu or even the Chef's special; they may prefer to have it as part of a monthly ration under the PDS scheme, to be dished out along with the pulses and cereals once a month ( provided you have an Aadhar card), or even as a, well, one- off Diwali sop. Second, the wife swapping ban is a bit superfluous under lock down conditions with three demographic dividends running riot in the house( who know more about it than you and your ancestors ever did): when you can't make it with your own wife, what chance is there that you'll have better luck with someone else's? Orgies, of course, are a complete no-no, unless you want to invite the local SHO to it. But at least there was some clarity. 

  The Germans have been more forthcoming ( not to be confused with "froth coming" as with Donald Trump). The Germans never mince their words and their health advisory is to adopt the "Doggy position" to avoid face-to-face contact. Now, shifting abruptly from the Missionary to the Doggy position requires, literally, a sexual revolution and should not be attempted if you have spondylitis or a slipped disc . If you are in the Missionary Up position when this advice reaches you, however, you should wait for the next tweet from the BJP's in-house expert on orgasms, that MP from Hyderabad who has been defenestrated by an Arab princess, before redeploying your NPAs. But spare a thought for the proselytising religions for whom this is a mortal blow : their missionary activities have already been quarantined, and now they shall even be dethroned from the Missionary Up position. Don't for a minute under estimate the enormity of the loss: the Missionary Up has been western civilisation's most, well, seminal export to the heathens after syphillis, it has brought more men to their knees than all the Popes since St. Peter : how on earth will they now demonstrate to savages the proper method of praying?

  In any case it's so heartening to know that we are finally picking up some tips from man's best friend. It would, of course, have been better if we had learnt other things from the pooch- loyalty, selflessness, love- but I guess we can't be too choosy: in these difficult times we must take what we can, even if we have to go down on our knees to do so. But even this advice will encounter problems in India. Will the doggy position not amount to a crime under the Indian Penal Code- an "act against the order of nature"? In which case shall we subjected to the sight, every morning, of large numbers of Indian males being led along to the police station on leashes hitherto reserved for their dogs? Is it going to be a dog's life now for us, in more senses than one? I guess the Supreme Court will have to finally decide on the matter when it returns from its lock down, summer vacations and recusals. It will, however, have to be at most a two judge bench, because the Belgium Minister may not look too kindly on a threesome, and a full bench may look like a juridical orgy to her.
  A friend of mine in government, who knows a thing or two about " working from home", has asked me to keep an eye on the birth rate in January 2021; he expects a massive surge then. It stands to reason, if you ask me. Firstly, the word "working" in our country ( especially in govt. offices) actually means "screwing around", so what else can you expect when you ask folks to work from home? Secondly, washing dishes side by side with the spouse does tend to make those pheromones buzz around a bit, what? I suspect Mr. Alan Greenspan's Underwear Index may also have something to do with it: it has been falling consistently, and with the markets all shut how do you replace the millions of Jockeys worn out with all that sitting on the couch? If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, lockdown hath no bigger danger than an Indian male with ungirded loins. If you don't believe me have a look at the photo below, of the home delivery of another essential service:

                                 [ Photo courtesy Yatish Sud, unemployed hotelier in Shimla ]

Incidentally, my mole  also informs me that there may be a proposal in the offing  not to issue birth certificates to kids born in January/ February 2021 , on the grounds that their parents did not follow social distancing norms, and that these babies will be deemed to have been born out of wed-lock(down). The ardent parents should have contained themselves..

  In the meantime, of course, the Army has lost no time in educating its own on how to avoid the virus, in the explicit, no nonsense language it is known for. A friend has sent me a photo of a notice put up in a golf course, containing detailed advice on how to handle balls during the corona period ( see below):

                                        [ Photo courtesy Mr. Yatish Sud, now amateur photographer]

Now this is the kind of unambiguous advice we need from our Health Minister so that there's no ball-up in our fight against the virus. ( I presume, of course, that the advice relates to golf balls).

THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES( III)-- SCRAPS WON'T DO, IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME

   It is time to accept that the global mayhem currently playing out has not all been created by the Coronavirus- it is a catalyst which has exposed the many problems that already existed- chief among

 them being rampant ( and increasing) inequality, pathetic health care systems, lack of social safety nets and environmental degradation. COVID 19 is not just a public health issue- it will begin as one, but its real impact in times to come shall be on livelihoods, social structures, economic models and our ways of life. Limiting myself to India, it is clear that if we don't reform our governance immediately, we will be even more vulnerable to COVID 22 or 23 when it comes around again, as it inevitably shall. There is only so much dependence that can be placed on Ayurveda, Pranayam, Yoga, lock downs and lighting of candles.

   Take the economic model that reigns supreme these days, and has since the 1990s- the neo liberal capitalist theory. Its false Gods are GDP and the creation of wealth, never mind that the top 1% of Indians own 51.3% of the national wealth, leaving only 4.8% for the bottom 60%; putting it another way, 12 million Indians own four times the wealth held by 953 million Indians ( OXFAM report, Davos 2020). The coronavirus is just a temporary nuisance for the former, but a life and death issue for the latter, as the misery and mass suffering of millions of migrants and abandoned labourers in Mumbai, Anand Vihar, Surat, Hyderabad, etc testify to. It is expected that perhaps as many as 200 million additional Indians shall be pushed below the poverty line this year, adding to the 250 million already there. Many will not even be able to access the PDS rations because they are either migrants or do not have ration cards; the collapsed economy will render tens of millions unemployed for a long time. COVID has exposed the inequity and hollowness of the economic model we have been following and it is time to throw out the billionaire with the bath water. It is public values, and not private values, which should shape our economic planning; the distribution of wealth is as vital as the creation of wealth, and the wretched must be given their rightful place at the high table, they should have first claim to the nation's resources.

   Noam Chomsky, the American philosopher and linguist in an interview to DIEM TV ( which all of us must watch) does not mince his words. He ascribes the devastating economic impact of COVID 19 to a " neo-liberal plague", a " savage neo-liberalism" the script of which has been dictated to governments by their " corporate masters". In an alarming aside he further warns that "authoritarian states are quite compatible with neo-liberalism." We have seen enough evidence of this in India too, particularly over the last six years. Corona is telling us that this mould has to be broken, the "Daridranarayan" of Mahatma Gandhi, not the billionaire of Davos, must now become the focal point of all economic planning. A country with more than a third of its population below the poverty line, and with a current unemployment rate of 24% ( rising every day), cannot even think of any other model.

   The time for Universal Basic Income( UBI) has arrived. What India's 800 million poor/ migrant/ landless population desperately needs now is a safety net, not just an uncertain 10 kgs of rice, which in any case is not available to the 139 million migrant workers ( Census 2011) who lack a ration card or even a BPL card. Leading economists and Nobel prize winners have been imploring the central govt. to dispense with these requirements at a time like this when starvation is just over the horizon, but the response would put a four toed sloth to shame.

   UBI is already being tested on a pilot basis in some countries, but the time for clinical trials is over and it must be implemented in the next few months. Vijay Joshi, an eminent Oxford economist, has estimated in a study that giving Rs. 17500 to each household in India every year would cost 3.5% of GDP or about Rupees seven lakh crores. A lot of this, however, can be recouped by doing away with many non-merit subsidies which currently total up to 7.5% of our GDP. Moreover, UBI does not have to be universal: it can be restricted to only the BPL and the migrant workers, in which form its financial implication would be significantly less. We already have the required digital and banking architecture to implement this- the famed JAM trilogy of Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobiles; using it for welfare is much better than employing it for surveillance. Combined with a more inclusive PDS, while the UBI cannot prevent the poor from falling,  it can at least ensure that they will rise again some day when the jobs return.

   Exiled by force from their jobs and the cities, almost the entire labour force has now reverse- migrated to their villages, presenting a problematic irony: now that parts of the economy are re-opening there are no workers to turn the wheels of commerce and industry. There is no labour for agricultural operations, 85% of truck drivers have simply abandoned their vehicles ( and freight) on the roads and fled, most construction labour have gone. In their absence supply chains will remain disrupted, and resumption of industry and businesses delayed, for months. The labour are not likely to return soon after their horrific experiences, their fear of further indignities and uncertainties outstrips their fear of the virus.

Even if the inevitable prospect of starvation in the villages forces them to return, the same script will be repeated when the next Corona strikes. To prevent a recurrence of the humanitarian tragedy now playing out, it is imperative that they be assured of a minimum income. Not ad -hoc, temporary doles but a permanent, assured income which will enable them to weather any future storms, stay put, and resume working when the clouds have gone.

  Lack of financial resources can no longer be an alibi for the government to deny them a UBI. A country which aspires to be a five trillion dollar economy cannot allow almost half its population to wallow in poverty and live a life of extreme indignity. Our economic model can no longer be dictated by corporates who have siphoned off ten lakh crore rupees under the guise of NPAs- sufficient, if recovered, to fund UBI for the next five years. This is not just an economic crisis, as Dalal Street would have us believe, but a civilisational crisis for the country as a whole. Worse, it is an existential crisis for our poor: Ms Sitharaman may not admit it, but it takes more than five hundred rupees a month, ten kilos of rice and a police lathi to keep body and soul together. Ask that weeping young worker we all saw on TV at Anand Vihar the other day, without any money, job or food; he just wanted to walk back home in UP two hundred miles away but was not even being allowed to do that.

He has probably gone now but ask yourself- Why in hell should he want to come back? And if he doesn't, then how in hell do we become a five trillion dollar economy?

   

THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES(II)- MISSING POLITICIANS AND MISTAKEN IDENTITIES.

  Notwithstanding the rising corona count, most people would agree that our civil services, particularly in the districts, are doing a very fine job under extremely daunting circumstances. The DMs, SPs and CMOs are making optimum use of a broken down system, poor infrastructure, limited resources to successfully keep the numbers from reaching exponential levels: this is more or less true across the country, to the surprise of many. And this is in spite of poor planning and zero consultations with the states by the center. The Prime Minister will of course take all the credit but it is the civil services which are delivering- not the PMO, not the Cabinet- amidst the confusion and bankruptcy of ideas in Delhi. I personally cannot remember the last time when the administration worked with such efficiency, cohesion and single minded determination. There is only one reason why this has been possible- the politicians are locked down! Just consider- when was the last time you saw ( or heard) any member of Mr. Modi's cabinet, or of any state? Where are all those MPs, MLAs, Pradhans, opposition stalwarts with their demands, protests, dharnas, rallies, threats, ultimatums, interference ? All safely locked down in their mansions , in dread of both the law and the virus; allowing the machinery of governance to focus on its job. India is a much better place with the Giriraj Singhs, Sanjeev Baliyans, Owaisis and Kapil Mishras kept off the streets, keeping their toxins  to themselves. It is not only the natural environment which has improved thanks to the coronavirus but also the administrative and political environment. Encouraged by this, I would earnestly request Mr. Modi to extend the lockdown for politicians by at least six months after it is relaxed for the rest of the country. The pathogens spread by them are far more lethal than any virus and our democracy has yet to find a vaccine for them. Keep these carriers out of circulation for another six months and  we would have a Swacch Bharat by then. Why, by then we might even develop some immunity from them.

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  Mr. Modi rarely condescends to explain to us humble citizens the reasons behind his decisions, and the creation of the new fund, the eponymous PM CARES is one such. Which is precisely one reason, among many, why I do not intend to contribute to it. Why did he have to launch another donation portal when the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund , which was set up in 1948, can do the job just as well? I suspect it is his narcissism that drives him to leave his personal imprint on everything and destroy any legacy of his predecessors, not unlike the kings of yore. The PMNRF was established by Jawaharlal Nehru and therefore has to be sent to the chopping block: the first step has been taken to replace it completely with the PM CARES. The new Fund is also totally opaque, no rules for it have been notified, including for its oversight and audit. Why has it been allowed to accept CSR contributions when the various Chief Minister's Relief Funds have been denied this concession? Will it be covered under RTI Act ? Most observers feel it will not, as it is a public trust. To put it simply, I don't trust it.

  Why was this fund needed at all, is my second question? If changes were needed in the PMNRF ( like expanding its scope or removing the Congress President as one of its Committee members) this could have been done by amendments to it. Our Prime Minister is constantly in the JFK mode, advising us not to ask him what he is doing but to ask ourselves what we are doing for the country. Which is okay when things are hunky dory but these are not normal times. Before asking us to donate from our already stretched incomes, he should have- he was duty bound- to tell us what steps he has taken to mobilise additional funds for the epidemic from the govt. coffers. The govt. has plenty of money, if only it would jettison some of his  fanciful projects, prioritise his govt. spending better, and show a modicum of empathy for the poor. Here are some suggestions:

*  Scrap the Bullet train project; it has no place in an India where tens of millions have to march hundreds of miles on foot to reach their homes. This will save Rs. 100,000 crores.

*  Scrap the Central Vista project in Delhi. It is an environmental and aesthetic disaster and superfluous. The saving will be Rs. 20000 crore.

*  Scrap the Char Dham highway, another ecological calamity which, within a decade, will destroy the holy sites of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri under a tsunami of cars and tourists. The savings- Rs. 11700 crores.

* Drastically curtail the PM's foreign visits and media self promotion, neither of which have improved either our economy or our standing in the world. The savings will be at least Rs. 5000 crore.

*  Scrap the plans to build 100 new airports in the next four years at a cost of Rs.100,000 crore. It is expected that that there will be at least a 50-60% decline in air line bookings this year( and perhaps the next also) and there is no need for this ambitious plan. The savings would amount to Rs. 25000 crore every year.

*  Defer all new DA payments to govt. employees and pensioners for the next two years; they are the most fortunate of this country's wretched citizens, with assured incomes, when about 400 million fellow citizens don't even know whether they will survive the next day, and it is estimated that the pandemic will push an additional 175 million Indians below the poverty line. The DA can certainly wait. This will save the GOI itself about Rs. 70000 crore and the states at least the same amount over two years.

*  Declare a complete moratorium on recruitment for govt. jobs for two years, except for essential services such as health, police, sanitation staff. The savings will be substantial.

* And why is the govt. so silent about the second windfall coming its way- the collapse of global oil prices? They are down from about seventy dollars per barrel to thirty dollars. Every dollar decline in crude prices results in a direct benefit of Rs. 10700 crores for India, at current consumption levels. Even if we assume that consumption will fall by 40% because of a slowing economy and lockdowns, the govt still saves Rs. 240000 crores, and that too in precious foreign exchange.

* In a financial emergency ( which is our current status) the govt. also has access to the RBI's reserve fund which currently amounts to about Rs. 950,000 crores. It should tap into this immediately- right now the lives of millions of Indians are more valuable than the "autonomy" of the RBI which in any case has been buried six feet under.

  The money is there, the correct priorities and intentions are not. But Mr. Modi will not speak to us to allay our doubts and explain what he intends to do. And until he does so I'm not too excited about PM CARES or doesn't care.

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   I don't know about you, folks, but I had my Omar Abdullah moment yesterday. I had gone to the Mother Dairy booth just across our Society gate to buy some vegetables. The store clerk totaled up my bill and said, respectfully, " Two hundred rupees, Auntie." Now, it's been a while since anyone mistook me for a woman, or treated me like one:  the last occasion that I can recollect was when I was about eight years old, in a Ranchi hostel, and had gone to the warden for some medicine for a bruise on my head acquired in the boxing ring.The kind hearted ( and slick fingered) Jesuit father insisted on checking, and feeling, my thighs to arrive at a correct diagnosis before sending me on my way with a Saridon. I have since spent 60 years without encountering this medical diagnostic practice so I was, if not non-plussed, at least not very plussed  at being addressed in the feminine gender. I looked in the mirror and saw an Asiatic Dorian Grey kind of face with salt and pepper locks cascading down on both sides, a hirsute parenthesis for the Shukla kisser, a reverse mirror image of Omar Abdullah when he emerged after eight months of the traditional Modi hug. And then it struck me!- this is what happens when forced confinement prevents you from getting sheared for any length of time. The moustaches spoilt the picture somewhat but then that is par for the course too these days- most women in Delhi too have sprouted whiskers after three weeks away from Barbara and Kamini- I think these are what FICCI has mistaken for the "green shoots" in the economy. I forgave the clerk, as is my wont, and returned home in a pensive frame of mind: what if, the next time Mr. Amit Shah wants to embrace Omar Abdullah under PSA, the police mistake me for him? In these troubled times, is it preferable to be mistaken for a woman than for an Abdullah? Food for thought, folks, and another reason to stay at home till the barbers, and the good days, return.

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TAILPIECE:  Lest we start feeling sorry for ourselves for our current incarcerated plight, be humbled by the words of the poet:

         " Zara si kaid se ghutan hone lagi ?

           Hum to pancchi palne ke shaukeen thhe!"  

THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES (I)- CROSSWORDS AND THE STRANGER IN THE HOUSE.

  " Age doth not wither nor custom stale her infinite variety."

This is how Enobarbus described Cleopatra in Shakespeare's classic, but if he had been hanging around with me today in my locked down flat instead of partying with Antony and Cleopatra, I have no doubt at all that this is exactly how he would have described our Prime Minister. Mr. Modi never ceases to surprise, and the only predictable thing about him is that he is unpredictable! These, and a few other home truths, have now dawned on me after 12 days of the intense meditation prescribed under the Epidemic Act. Time to share them with you before I jump out of my second floor window, having exhausted my stock of Wills and Blender's Pride.

   The man is a maestro: just look at how he has turned symbols of protest into tokens of support for his leadership: lighting of candles, beating of pots and pans, self imposed janata curfews. He has appropriated this idiom as his own, just as he has taken over the opposition's vote banks, the Congress's historical icons, Gandhi's spectacles, even America's "Howdy"! There are no modes of protest left for us! He's done his own SWAT analysis, and by converting his Weaknesses into his Strengths, he has swatted the opposition into mumbling incoherence. The coronavirus is a grave threat to national leaders across the world, but for Mr. Modi it's a god send in the midst of a collapsed economy, Shaheen Bagh, CAA, Kashmir, legal challenges to its constitutional overreach, and a feisty Mahua Moitra. Rest assured these will now be brushed under the carpet ( well, okay, not her) by the broom  of a renewed nationalism. He is now the Messiah who will save the nation, the  Vast Anti Virus, the Moses who will lead his peoples to a safe haven ( minus, of course, the millions who have already left on their own, trudging back to their villages). He has us in thrall. Therefore, after much tossing and turning in my unmade bed, I've decided to support whatever  symbolic gesture he demands of us next; I have a feeling it will be the bucket next time- everybody line up in the street, one meter apart, and kick the bucket ! We all have to do this some day, so might as well do it now and save the nation. 

  There is much I have learnt in these last two weeks, and the gaps in my rudimentary education have more or less been filled up, thank you. A three bed room, 1500 sq. feet flat, for example, is not a small flat if you have to mop and broom the floor everyday: I'm now content with my humble lot and thank the Lord I don't have a mansion on Aurangzeb road. Domestic violence in a quarantined space is gender neutral and not just a problem for women, as the National Women's Commission seems to think. A human being CAN survive without Food Panda and Swiggy's but he cannot without Netflix. Sections of the electronic media have sunk to the Mariana Trench levels, piggy backing on the corona virus to spread their communalism. The demand for hand sanitisers ( 60% alcohol) has gone up because all the "thekas" have closed- expect something similar to happen soon with nail polish removers and after-shave. Except in Kerala and West Bengal that is, where liqour is now being home delivered as an "essential commodity"- hang your digital heads in shame Big Basket and Amazon Prime ! Don't get too excited about that other woman in your flat- she is your wife, she just looks different after all those missed visits to the hairdresser and beautician. There's more in my revised syllabus.

  Talking to your dog or cat is normal after one week, but you may have a problem if they start answering you. Talk to your pots and pans only after the second week. One doesn't have to use Harpic in the toilet bowl after four days of the lock down: the soap and disinfectant you use twenty times a day would have worked its way into your pee by then and it will do the job. And here's a revelation- Osama bin Laden was not killed by the US navy seals: he committed suicide after being locked up for five years in a house with five wives. The physical dynamics of sweeping and mopping are totally different- in the former you move forward, in the latter the movement is backwards. On the 15th of April, all Indian males will belong to one of two categories: cooks or drunks. And here's a warning for all men: if you have some hidden cooking skills, don't show them off because you'll just be cooking your own goose. Remember, there will be a life after the lockdown, and your wife would have noted your talent. In which case you will be wishing that the virus had got you.
  I miss my daily newspaper, which has been banned by my Society because it may carry pathogens more dangerous than what is contained in the news itself. However, it's not the news I miss but the daily crossword. I was beginning to get pretty good at figuring out clues like " Fat fish swallowed by a serviceman(9)" and " Sound clock gives correct time(4)". Since I was almost brain dead during the 35 years spent in government, the crosswords reignited my dormant telomeres and synapses and I could actually feel the ruddy things zapping each other to find the answer to " roamed the street with ready change(7)." On a good day I could nail them all, on other days I needed some help, like the Pope on a flight, immersed in a crossword. The cardinals with him noticed that he was stuck on a particular word, licking his pencil, deep in thought, his face turning red. After some time the Pope turned to a Monsignor and asked: " I need some confirmation here: what is a four letter word, pertaining to a woman, of which the last three letters are - UNT ?" The holy men squirmed: anyone who supplied the obvious answer would surely lose his job. Finally, the youngest of the cardinals, not yet steeped in sin, replied: " Your Holiness, that's easy- the word is AUNT." The Pope looked surprised, and mumbled in a barely audible voice:  "But of course! By the way, do you have an eraser?" Tricky things, these crosswords.

  Excuse me now, folks, it's time for me to take the garbage bag out to the gate. It's my only daily outing and I'm really excited! I wonder if Neerja has ironed that suit I'd bought from Marks and Spencer just before they were coronavirused ? 

[ I'm grateful to my many friends for some of the inputs. It's comforting to know that we're going crazy together.] 

FOLLOWING THE ( TOILET) PAPER TRAIL.

   So here's your question of the week, dear reader: when an eighteen trillion dollar economy starts collapsing what do people rush to buy? If your answer is food, or medicines or cigarettes you are sane. If the answer is condoms or booze then you are reasonably sane (but should be consulting a shrink). But in both cases you would be wrong. Because in the United States, where the President poses for photographs with toilet paper sticking to his shoes, the answer is- naturally- Toilet Paper or TP in these abbreviated times. As is now marketing lore, when news of the coronavirus entering the US without even a visa broke, stores were wiped clean of TP within hours; there was a 60% surge in demand, customers were rolling in the supermarket aisles after the rolls, and butt coin replaced bit coin as the new currency.

  In hind sight (the correct word, you will agree) this was not unexpected in a country which consumes 7 billion rolls of TP in a year, 50 pounds per capita, worth roughly US $ 6 billion. This is already twice the average consumption of Europe and yet Americans, like Oliver Twist, wanted more! Marketing gurus and psycho-analysts went into a tizzy trying to explain this sudden explosion in demand. I know nothing about marketing and even less about psychology, but to me the explanation is crystal clear- every time a Chinese sneezed in Times Square, every American within a hundred meter radius shat. Ergo, more butts to wipe. And here's the delicious irony- TP was first invented by the Chinese in the 6th century! How's that for marketing strategy- send in the toilet paper, then the coronavirus, and then more toilet paper? That's what economists call a circular economy.

  It doesn't take much in these days of forced quarantine for me to get nostalgic about the past, and when I read about the TP stampedes in the US, I sub-consciously found myself wandering back down the toilet paper trail in my own life. I recollected, for example, how TP has shaped my personality. As a six year old who had outlived his welcome at home, I was dispatched to a boarding school in Ranchi, Bishop Westcott Boys' School. We were issued one roll of TP every week, regardless of the current status of our vowels, sorry, bowels. At times of the "loosies" the ruddy things did in fact serve as butt coins and one roll was worth quite a bit of tuck in the canteen. We slept with the rolls under our pillows, but for us Lower KG types (you couldn't get any lower, in size or in academic status) the chink in the armour lay in the "bogs" or toilet block.

   The bogs were partitioned into cubicles whose doors, however, did not reach the floor but stopped about eighteen inches short of it (like our trousers). There being no shelves, the TP roll had to be deposited on the floor for use at the appropriate time. Lower KG types were fair game and provided the prey base for the bigger guys. My nightmare(repeated at least three times a week) when seated on the throne was to see a hairy hand slither under the door, grab the TP roll and withdraw with a heh-heh-heh. This was usually followed by bilateral negotiations through the door, sometimes converting to multi-lateral World Trade Organisation type parleys, courtesy the adjoining cubicles, when agreement was elusive. Three years of this have left a permanent mark on my personality: I am a hopeless negotiator, can't bear to look at a TP roll, and never enter lavatories whose doors do not reach the floor.

  Following this toilet trail into later life brings me to the time when I was posted as a callow Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) to Chamba in the backwaters of Himachal in 1977. My Deputy Commissioner (DC) was Yogesh Khanna, a good friend now but a veritable dragon back then. Because of an irritating peptic ulcer Yogesh subsisted almost entirely on gelusil tablets and breathed fire on his SDMs in the manner of Typhon of Greek mythology. Singed more than once, I rebelled and declined to attend a party he organised for the first birthday of his first son, Ronnie - a grand event, because a DC's eldest is regarded as Kanwar sahib. My first war of independence, however, did not go unnoticed, and invited retribution not dissimilar to the 1857 one. At the stroke of the midnight hour that night Yogesh rang me up and ordered me to inspect all the municipal toilets in town immediately and submit a detailed report by 10.00 AM. the next day.

  I rousted the SHO, Tehsildar and the Junior Engineer and we made the rounds of all 15 public toilets in Chamba town. It was evident in no time that these toilets functioned only on foolscap paper, not toilet paper or even water, and  at the end of our tour we were smelling like sewer rats. We found that quite a few drunks and druggies had made the loos a home away from home, and they also functioned as the local stock exchange for various stimulants. I don't think Yogesh ever read my fetid report but my personality had been further moulded by the nocturnal inspection: I now look upon tipplers and trippers with a kindly eye and deeply sympathise with Indu who, quite clearly, had no idea what she was getting into when she plighted her troth to Yogesh in a moment of absent mindedness so many years ago.

  Fast forward to 2018 and an elevation of 4200 meters, to a sylvan wonder called Khorli poi, a forested pasture on a ridge in the Tirthan valley. I had gone on a trek there with an old forester friend, and our party reached there by evening. Khorli poi lies in the remote depths of the Great Himalayan National Park in Kullu district, it is a birder's paradise as it is the habitat of the endangered  Western Tragopan pheasant. On arrival we found that a young, intrepid wild life photographer from National Geographic was also camped there: she was doing a photo shoot/ article on the tragopan. Her name was Mun Mun. We pitched our tents and, as is the custom, the toilet tents were put up about a hundred meters away among the undergrowth to provide some privacy. (Incidentally, that precisely is the difference between a walk in the woods and a trek: if you don't have to trudge two hundred meters and climb a hundred meters to take a dump then it's not a trek).

  After a pleasant camp fire and dinner we retired to our respective tents. Early next morning, awakened by an orchestra of bird calls and crystal clear sunlight, I grabbed a bottle (nothing strong, just water) and made my pensive way to the toilet tent. Going through the familiar SOP I was about to adopt the traditional posture of the homo erectus at such moments when I saw something glinting in a bush straight ahead. An alarmed inspection revealed that it was the lens of a camera trap, pointing straight at the Shukla regalia! Unknown to us, Mun Mun had got up before sunrise and placed her cameras at strategic locations in the undergrowth to catch the elusive tragopans and had not noticed our DIY loo. I demurely covered the camera with thick foliage and went back to my interrupted ablutions. It was a narrow shave indeed. I've always wanted to have my photo on the cover of National Geographic, but certainly not in the buff, with the caption: HOMO CRAPIENS. Fortunately, the incident had no impact on my already weak psyche, but it did reinforce the wisdom of Confucius: "The wise man crap in- camera, not on camera."
  So grab your pens, folks, and jot down those gradually dimming recollections of a life wasted; it's amazing what you can recollect when you spend your incarcerated days banging pots and pans and your evenings lighting candles, to the shouts of GO, CARONA, GO! 

REDEFINING PATRIOTISM IN A POST COVID-19 INDIA

  In a world increasingly being taken over by a totalitarian right wing ideology ( and India is very much there, along with the USA, UK, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, the Phillipines, Poland ) the idea of patriotism has been distorted to serve the authoritarian tendencies of their rulers. Autocracy does best when it has an enemy, real or imagined, to frighten its citizens with; this enemy can come in various forms: a neighboring nation, terrorism, drugs, traitors from within, economic collapse, a different religion or ethnic community. Its alleged purveyors are equally varied - contrary ideologues, intellectuals, artists, journalists, academicians- and they have to be countered with the force of "sovereign violence" and public denunciation in order to "save" the nation from their conspiracies.

  But before this can be done it is necessary to acquire legitimacy for the state's actions. This is done by aggressively promoting an ersatz and aggressive form of Nationalism in which the autocrat's ideology IS the national interest and any opposition to it is anti- national, if not seditionist. This nationalism is enshrined in a new concept of patriotism, a form of jingoism, where loyalty is sought for the ruling establishment and not for the country. And to extract this loyalty from its citizens, this redefined patriotism has to be necessarily militarized- equated with hysterical support for the state's coercive apparatus- the military, para military, police, even state sponsored vigilante mobs. These forces are brought into play on every occasion- Parliamentary debates, election speeches, television programmes- to divert the attention of the populace from other unresolved problems, and any questioning of their actions is branded as unpatriotic. In the Indian context we see examples of this everyday, whether it is the " unpatriotic" demand for withdrawal of AFSPA, reported excesses in Kashmir, questioning of the Rafale deal, the brutal conduct of the UP police against the anti-CAA protesters, recent actions and inactions of the police in Delhi, mob lynchings. By militarising patriotism every coercive action of the state becomes legitimate, the agents of this coercion become holy cows, and every other agency of the state becomes secondary. This is also a calculated effort by the rulers to coopt the armed forces to their cause. Support for this militarisation becomes the only standard for judging one's patriotism because the "enemies" of the nation ( as defined earlier) can only be countered by these armed forces and de-facto militias.

   This has worked well for Mr. Modi so far, ensuring that the bread and butter issues are put on the back burner, and garnering massive popular support for him and his party. But the events around the Covid 19 pandemic may be about to change all this. An invisible virus has locked down the whole country and generated an unprecedented fear and panic not seen since Partition. It is an existential dread about a deadly present and a  precarious future. And suddenly, the jingoistic bogies created by the government to stir up nationalism appear inconsequential, hollow and petty in the face of threats to our very ways of life. A realisation has also set in that the real threat to the country today is not on its borders or in the jungles of Dantewada, but right here, in the air we breathe and the hand we touch. It is not the govt's militarised apparatus which will save the country but a new set of heroes and warriors.

   The front lines today are not on our external borders but in every village and town, and those engaging in battle there are not  soldiers but people who have been completely neglected so far by this militaristic government- doctors, nurses, para medicals, scientists, researchers, sanitation staff, pharmacists ( they are there in our uniformed forces too, though equally neglected there too). It is these warriors who are the real patriots today, risking their own and their families' lives in order to keep us safe; their sacrifice is the patriotism we need to realise and recognise now, and in the future too.

  There are others too, those who are fighting the parallel war to prevent our economy from collapsing, to ensure that the supply chain of the goods and services on which our daily living depends does not collapse. Humble entities we take for granted: store clerks, truck drivers, the grocer and the vegetable vendor, the milk man, the delivery boy, the bus conductor, the journalist, the private security guard- they too put their lives at risk every time they venture out. And let us not forget those backroom, invisible boys and girls who are keeping our telecom and digital systems going at this difficult time, keeping us connected even as the government is compelled to snap these connections. This eco-system of social media platforms, digital information and services fills the physical void, Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Bharti Airtel reminds us in an article, allowing us to remain productive even while avoiding the risk of contagion. It enables families to stay in touch, access vital information, maintain everyday commerce. These techies may not be risking their lives, but they ensure that our digital civilisation does not collapse. It is these people who are the real patriots of today.

   If there's one important lesson that COVID 19 has taught us, apart from exposing our fragility and stupidity as a race, it is that these hitherto unsung, unacknowledged professionals are the soldiers of the future. It has, hopefully, taught us that whereas boots on the ground will always be needed, the next millenium  belongs to biological, economic and cyber warfare; while protecting our borders may still be required, the real challenge will be in protecting our ways of life, our natural environment, the health of communities; while Pakistan may continue to be enemy no. 1, the real enemy will be our inability to accept that the world will have changed irrevocably after this virus, and that we too need to change our politically expedient definition of patriotism. One doesn't have to wear a uniform, or march to the rhythms of jackboots, or chant Jai Shri Ram to be a patriot. Of course, our armed forces will always occupy pride of place, but they now have to share this space with others on the new front lines of the new dangers.

  So it's not enough to clap or bang pots and pans for two minutes to express our theoretical gratefulness to the many who are preventing our health and economy from collapsing. What is needed is to discard this deviant concept of a militarised patriotism, recognise the new warriors and realign national resources so that the real patriots are better equipped to defend our ancient civilisation and modern economy. As Mark Lawrence Schrad, the American author and Professor of Sociology hopes, in an insightful article in the POLITICO magazine: " Perhaps, too, we will finally start to understand that patriotism is cultivating the health and life of your community, rather than blowing up someone else's community."

  

SOCIAL DISTANCING IS A CAKEWALK FOR US

   Notwithstanding that I am an ardent admirer of Mr. Shashi Tharoor's prose I have to jump the gun on him this week and propose the word/ phrase of the month- "social distancing". The phrase is rattling off everyone's tongue like the virus itself and has overtaken those all time favourites- "sedition" and "chowkidar." The reason, I suspect, is because we Indians are past masters at this, having practiced it assiduously ever since we arrived here from the steppes of central Asia.

  The higher castes have for centuries made it a point to keep the lower castes at a safe distance: their water sources, toilets, houses, even cremation grounds have to be in a distant corner so as not to contaminate the twice born. If it was not for our Constitution the chaps would even have been kept away from Parliament. The well to do ( usually also the ne'er do well) in cities have insulated themselves from the hoi polloi by building gated communities, clubs and watering holes disguised as golf clubs so that the grime of daily labour does not rub off on them. Death may be the great leveller, but the journey to it is also segregated: the rich go to five star hospitals while the less endowed crawl over each other in the charnel houses that government hospitals are. Our rulers reside among the lush greenery of Lutyen's Delhi while those who made them rulers infest the bylanes of jhuggi jhopri colonies, 80000 to a square kilometer. At times even walls are built to block off slums, as in Ahmedabad during Trump's visit, to demonstrate how seriously we take the concept of social distancing. The higher judiciary protects itself by cutting down on its benches and cases, while the 450,000 poor devils it has locked up will continue to sweat it out in far away overcrowded, sweltering  jails, waiting for the next date, i.e. when their lordships consider it safe to expose themselves. Justice can wait, what matters now is that our judges survive to become Rajya Sabha members.

   The bureaucracy, of course, is in a class by itself and through decades of social distancing from the public has made itself totally immune from the coronavirus. Since they live in ivory towers they can't be infected; they wash their hands off everything so no virus can ever pin them down; they don't shake hands, only the feet of their political masters, so there's no need to wash them; sworn by training not to touch any piece of work, they are safe from any contagion; they wear so many masks to hide their true intentions they are not effected by the shortage of N 99 masks.

  It's the same with our politicians. They are so full of hot air that no virus can survive being in them. They are never in one place, always rushing off to resorts in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, to avoid both, the confidence vote and the virus: the operative word in their case is "defection" and not "infection." They have such thick skins that no pathogen will ever be able to permeate them. They distance themselves from their voters from the day they are elected so no further social distancing is required: they are safe for at least five years, and thereafter are totally immune for life from any prickings of conscience, mosquitoes and sundry bacillus. Finally, of course, they are a plague by themselves and the corona, in all likelihood,  would mistake a politician  for one of themselves and pass him by with a cheery "Happy hunting!" No surprise then that Parliament has not been suspended- it's at such a safe distance from the real world that no virus would be able to jump that distance.

  So while social distancing takes various forms in different countries- a stampede to buy guns in America, singing from balconies in Milan, being quarantined in a brothel in Germany, mounting divorces in China- in India it's no great shakes, we've been doing it for centuries. And the irony is that those from whom we've been distancing ourselves, the working class families for whom the "one meter distance" and the quarantine is a luxury, are the ones most likely to weather the storm! Figures so far appear to indicate that most of the positive cases come from the better off sections of society. Time perhaps to remember the poet James Shirley:

" Scepter and crown must tumble down,

  And in the dust be equal made

  With the poor crooked scythe and spade."

If the coronavirus can teach us just this much, the loss to the GDP may well be worth it.