A virus in a stellar role in a long playing suspense drama

Raju Korti
The versatility of the Corona virus may be making the world go round the bend but I find it perfectly in sync with my idiosyncrasies to create issues out of trite. It is exactly the kind of grub that my unproductive brain feeds on. I am not referring to the ability of the virus to generate conspiracy theories but to the contradictions it has been spawning since its onset in a province known mostly to its native Chinese. Each time a new dimension of its multi-splendored talent surfaces, I am tempted to explore its potential to play the lead role in a pulp mystery film.
The virus threw the mankind in throes of confusion with its utterly routine and non-suspicious symptoms. People who couldn't care if you sneezed or yawned in their face now look at you as if you are their sworn enemy. Worse still, even if you didn't, they would still look at you and avoid you like the plague. The virus has taken the sting out of untouchability. You can't swat it like a mosquito. A mosquito can be killed like that but how do you kill a virus that is already supposed to be dead?
While stories aplenty have been doing rounds about the weird eating habits of the Chinese, people in other parts of the globe are now shy of eating even the food they think is normal. The microorganism is a nutritionist and dietitian in its own right but is giving you nightmares about what you should be actually stuffing yourself with. So we have a wide range of food items that we are either supposed to eat or not supposed to eat. When one "expert" tells you should eat mangoes, the other "expert" warns you about the dangers of eating them in these times. Eating meat is both good and bad and so is drinking -- social or otherwise. People who couldn't hide their glee when they said that consuming alcohol could can kill the virus, were beaten into a hasty retreat when it was quickly pointed out that this was a myth and on the contrary it weakened the immune system. As wine shops downed shutters, resourceful but desperate minds had already started exploring the prospects of extracting alcohol from hand sanitizers to satiate the cravings of their liver. The specious excuse in favour of opening wine shops was the government was losing out in excise revenue. The virus is watching this do-I-don't-I predicament. If you have the symptoms, you have the virus. If you don't have the symptoms, you could be still harboring it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Do  high temperatures kill the virus? "Experts" say yes and no. For all you know, all those large mugs of tea and coffee you are gulping down your throat might or might not help. So garlic, fruits, hot spices, herbs may work, may not work. From head to toe, the virus has the liberty to access you without any password or protection and screw up your operating systems. Keep guessing how much you can seal or insulate yourself and your surroundings.
While the frantic search for vaccine continues, ideas -- some of them downright bizarre keep coming from all and sundry about the regimen to be followed. The idea of using hydroxychloroquine as a deterrent drug evaporated faster than it came after a short-lived debate on its efficacy against the baffling and enigmatic virus. The mystery continues. Imagine if this tiny monster were to fall into the hands of someone like Alfred Hitchcock or our own Ramsay Brothers. They would have made it a suspense thriller of the century. Instead, it fell into the hands of -- of all the people -- the president of United States who in his infinite wisdom suggested that injecting disinfectant and exposure to ultraviolet rays could help infected people. Doctors and epidemiologists quarantined the idea before some overzealous elements could have gone ahead with it.
You may be disappointed and/or amused with Trump's outlandish seemliness but suspense and mystery are worse than disappointments. The virus knows this in its present invincibility and is playing the role of a hero and villain both while we are all condemned to play the character actor roles in this interminable serial. Keep your fingers and legs crossed.

Of Corona, mutating cultures and incidental austerity

Raju Korti
The Corona pandemic has been playing a spoilsport across the globe. With rising casualties, declining economy, stuttering jobs, overstretched health care services and bruised psyches, there has been little to cheer for in recent times. The virus has, however, a flip side to offer. Rarely before humour has been a more effective anti-virus as a defense mechanism to soothe the collective anxiety. In my part self-imposed and part forced quarantine, I have been trying to mutate some harmless humour and positives that the puniest of viruses in Universe has unleashed along with its brutalities.
Forget all the free-flowing bile and vicious barbs on the social media, the world has also been united to some extent. And of all things, it had to be a dead bug to bring life into the cynicism-filled humanity. The virus didn't exist during the times of American political scientist Samuel Huntington who argued that future wars would be fought not between countries but between cultures. The tiny bug has taken a sadistic delight in knocking the punch out of the Clash of Civilizations theory at its very roots. How do you explain the fiercely unrelenting and culturally guarded westerners forgoing a handshake "Hello" in favour of the equally jealously guarded old-fashioned Indian "Namaste"? If you thought there was a meter to measure the cultural value of both, don't forget the cheeky virus that has sharply outlined the difference between the both. Watch the likes of Trump looking smug and wearing a smile that looks more like a grimace while they fold their hands in a theatrical Namaste..
People freaking out on their daily tipple are now being coerced into abstention realizing to their disconcert that it is possible to survive without alcohol. Those who aren't sick are beginning to see the funny side of the self-isolation, keeping people's spirits up without the customary "Cheers!" Texting people and eat low-calorie snacks are the healthier diversions.
While boozers have been submitted into self-restraint, most people cutting into their daily meat have been denied their indulgence of non vegetarian food and compelled to eat "ghaasfoos". Through its versatile repertoire the virus has made it expedient to turn non vegans into vegans and exercise within the confines of their homes even as gymnasiums slam shut and its equipment gather rust.
In the limited scenes I have been privy to in the present lock-down, I have seen people holding on to their shrinking wallets and being frugal like there would be no tomorrow. Austerity is being learnt the hard way with Corona fear refusing to unlock the wallets and handbags of even the well-heeled. It is chastisement under house arrest.
We laugh then, perforce, to take back control and to connect two things we are losing in the battle against Corona virus. Not only we look helpless in stopping the tidal wave of infection washing over us, we are also being forced to endure this stark reality alone in our homes with perhaps the occasional show of solidarity by banging thaalis and blowing conchs. Powerless and isolated, we find the humour is now our most reliable shield and also our coziest blanket. So what if the humour is inadvertent and unintended.
People want jokes partly because humour is a relief and it takes the edge off the danger. When circumstances about which you can do precious little are thrown at you, humour becomes a therapy in itself. The only consistency in the entire story is a genetically modified virus has resulted in genetically modified cultures. As cultures reboot and synthesize, the Corona becomes its own anti-virus. The bats will agree.

Kim Jong Un: Is he or was he?

File grab from Wikipedia

Raju Korti
It has been some time that news channels and the political leaders appearing on those have been hammering it into our numbed heads about the "secular" nature of the Corona virus. Their case is the virus is so unprejudiced, it does not discriminate on caste, religion and nationality. What is happening world-wide vindicates that claim with the exception of countries like North Korea which has a such a unassailable iron-clad wall built around it that no information can break through. I have selected North Korea not just because it stands the test of the case but also has all the Teflon-coated intrigue to raise curiosity.
There are speculations that the so called heart surgery of its whimsical and self-styled dictator Kim Jong Un has been "unsuccessful" and his life could be in danger -- a euphemism for death. There is no clear word whether it is a heart surgery or whether the virus has caught up with him or whether he is even indisposed in the first place. Sample this: Kim is said to have been born in 1983 or 1984 which means he could be 37 or 36. From his "marriage", sometimes "supported" by the picture of a pretty woman sitting next to him, he is "thought to have three children."  If the birth is uncertain, death is even more uncertain.
North Korean dictators don't die. They are "reported dead". They also have the phoenix-like ability to rise from their ashes. Barely had the world heaved a sigh of relief that Kim's grandfather, Kim II Sung had "reportedly died" at 74, it had the mortification of "finding" that the man was alive to rule for 11 more years after his "passing on". His son and his natural successor Kim Jong II was "declared dead" when he was supposed to be very much "alive" according to the state media. In fact, he had passed two days earlier and no body elsewhere in the world, least of all the North Koreans themselves had any clue. The most romantic part of this misty story of hereditary dictatorship is all Kim generations are "Eternal" until they die and die after being "Eternal". This happens in "Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
For a country whose population of 2.55 crore is a little more than that of Mumbai's 2.4 crore, you need to marvel at the fascination and mystery the mercurial Kim Jong Un generates. So it is natural to wonder how the hefty man "died" all of a sudden in the midst of a heart operation and someone from his own kin spread the word about his "death." And then came a "source" who asserted that "he was recovering from the surgery." Among other things which are tightly held in the country, it is the personal health of the Kims.
If you have understood how the state information apparatus in North Korea is handled going by Kim II Sung and Kim Jong II's deaths, Kim Jong Un could, repeat, could be alive but incapacitated. In any case, the Americans can be none the wiser. North Korea's reputation of being overwhelmingly secretive makes it dicey about trusting any information that comes through its paranoiac officially controlled media. The country forever lives in the fear that Americans could exploit its perceived weakness. Still, Un suffering a stroke managed to leak because he was treated by a French doctor and by his "absence" from the military parades. 
The lock-down due to Covid-19 pandemic confounds the confusion but the speculations seem to have been fueled by his skipping the recent cruise missile launch -- something unusual but not unprecedented. The man has not been seen in any videos and/or pictures which in any case cannot be authenticated. Few images of totalitarianism are as powerful as the vision of a regime trying to conceal the death of its self-proclaimed leader.
Not that it really matters if you speculate about the happenings in that country but the world will learn about Kim's health only when North Korea thinks it fit to make that announcement. Conjecturing about his successor at this stage is beyond the realms of even speculation.
I would have put it thus: "It is believed, widely or not, that the Supreme Commander of People's Democratic Republic Party of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, has reportedly died following a purported heart surgery. According to sources, usually close to Mr Kim Jong Un and at times reliable, he allegedly leaves behind a woman known to be his wife and three children, apparently his own. There will likely be a State mourning in respect of the soul if it has really departed."
Brevity is the soul of wit. Only President Trump will not appreciate.