How are you? I am fine and I hope this letter finds you hale and healthy. Now that this situation is taking a new course, discussion all over is about health, hygiene, social distancing and of course gatherings. These days, every individual I come across is quite concerned about maintaining social distancing but could not find out a way to avoid gatherings. Celebrations are a way of our living and though some can be avoided, most of our celebrations are unavoidable like funerals, weddings, naming ceremonies, baby showers, birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, biweekly community hangouts and what not!
Last week, I was talking to a neighbourand was wonderstruck to know that she had to attend a family gathering that took place for no reason but she could not avoid it out of respect for her elders. Invitations to community gatherings are flowing in as usual and surprisingly both the invitees and the invited think they are helpless in this matter.
Ironically, a wedding with less than fifty guests is being treated as an ill-fate meted out to the couple due to their past sins. Disappointment regarding this issue is running ripe among your subjects. Our weddings cannot be cancelled or postponed as it might sound inauspicious and they cannot be celebrated without the blessings of near and dear, a list of people which cannot be limited to a starkly deprived fifty.
Dear society, why are we so obsessed with rituals and celebrations? I do understand that rituals are a way of bringing together families and communities, but even when the hour demands it, why are we shying away from limiting our gatherings? Does it not indicate a larger context where we are indeed afraid of going against the laid norms for particular celebrations?
A fortnight ago, I have seen a photo shot during solar eclipse and trust me the roads are so deserted that you might mistake it to be taken during a curfew. We are so afraid of walking out during an eclipse but when it comes to a pandemic, we are least bothered about, forget alone walking out, but even to celebrate a Jatara. Why does this difference in acceptance occur when it comes to science and religion?
Last year I heard of a patient who avoided a hospital visit even while she was fighting for breath just because it was not an auspicious day. One visit to a maternity ward and you can see all the ruckus that takes place to deliver the baby at the right moment when all the stars stay supposedly in peaceful collaboration.
On my one particular visit to a hospital, I was surprised to see the hospital buzzing with crowds of people. I couldn’t hold my anxiety and asked a security guard if he knows why there were so many people in the hospital that day. He smiled at my innocence and said, “Madam! It is Vaisakha Ekadasi, an auspicious day to visit a hospital. On this day no surgeries go wrong and no treatment fails. That is why people are thronging to the hospital to get themselves treated.”
His words took some time to make sense to me. A few minutes into the conversation and he said many have been waiting for months to get their surgeries done on that particular day. He advised me that hospitals all around the city shall wear the same look and I better come another day for a new appointment as all those appointments were booked months ago.
Silly it may sound, but we really have scores of people actually believing that the position of stars in the sky determines the occurrence of events in the world. The other day, a friend of mine travelled nearly 800km putting herself at the risk of attracting the virus just because she had to come home in the month of Ashadam. Not just her, but thousands of girls like her made this journey with no thought spared for the situation on hand.
Dear society, when it comes to customs and traditions, why do we act so dumb and senseless? When religion asks a newlywed to not visit a family in grief, they stay back. But, when science says not to expose a pregnant woman to grief, we do not pay heed. When traditions imposes lockdown, it is all voluntarily taken up. No police comes shouting at the citizens to stay indoors; no lathi charge is required and no fines imposed. However, when science advices a lockdown the law feels so draconic and suppressive. Weddings are postponed for years together when horoscopes demand it, but when it comes to a pandemic, it is not such a valid reason to postpone an event as auspicious as a wedding.
Not just in this situation, but everywhere science and customs are playing a game of enmity where science tries to drive sense into us but we blindly follow our customs to wherever they lead us. Science tells us not to bathe on day one of our period but custom insists we do so. Science tells us to invite a family in grief to cheer them out of their depression, but custom says you are not supposed to let them in for an entire year. Science says we are guided by our own instincts, but custom says there is someone else writing our play and we are but mere puppets doing nothing but being played to amuse an unknown audience. Though science says we are what we think we are, we still believe in religion that says we are nothing and are just born to please a supernatural figure lying somewhere what no human eye had seen yet.
Dear society, my letter might seem confusing and full of chaos but this is how I keep feeling recently. I am being advised to stay more calm and peaceful because I might experience more mood swings this month. However, I am unable to resist myself from thinking about this pandemic and the way we are helping it grow out of hands through our actions that are avoidable in reality but unavoidable to our blind-to-science minds.
I hope you convey my concern to all your subjects and please ask them to stay low and travel less, celebrate lesser and gather least. Because, I cannot give birth to a baby in a virus-hit world and lull her to sleep by telling her that the world was a better place to live in until a year before her arrival.
Thank you for being the patient listener as you have always been,
Yours restlessly,
An Expecting Mother.
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