COVID-19? An Eye-opener?

A century. A pandemic. Man recovered. Man forgot. But every time they were killed, the Earth got back a part of it. But? At the cost of something small. List of pandemics will never fall short but the intensity will keep elevating with every instinct. 2002 saw the incoming of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) through China. With a few deaths, it was quickly contained in two years. The "modernization and advancement" of the medical world was accelerated at that time.

          Childhood was a precious, stable and positive one with no such memorable pandemics. But as 20 years passed, all that we saw were threats to Mother Earth, global warming rise, people behaving ignorantly and turning a deaf ear to the scientists and environmentalists. With Google making them half doctors they started taking medicines just on the basis of experience. Little did they realise that today's unnecessary oversmartness might lead to tomorrow's undesired trouble. That led to the onset of Multi Drug resistance.

          I remember our Microbiology teacher mentioning the begging scene of scientists in front of microbes because they will be the one and only residents of Earth. When there will be no cure, no medicine, no vaccine and with every passing season, there will be a new virus, the new flu, a new disease standing and staring at us from the other side, mocking our scientific knowledge.

          When you were throwing the Lays packet on the road, when you were carelessly killing animals, when you were burning forests to increase your apartments, when you were buying one more car just to make your child feel comfortable while going to school, when you were buying one more air conditioner to keep your drawing room cool, Nature warned you. The responsible and conscious citizens of today's generation tried to stop you. What did you do? You were busy mocking at them, you were busy labelling them as " unwanted lecturers who are just showing off". Oh! How did you console your baby when she was crying when you cut down the tree? Remember? the whole nature was begging in front of you? It was giving you repeated warnings but you never bothered. Now wait until you see the ice caps melting, the pandas disappearing and the remaining virus and bacteria culminating from their inactive to active forms.

          This one virus with genetic material of 30 kb RNA- has almost shown the Earth what an invisible miniscule creature is capable of. It has taught the middle class people VIROLOGY, as well as geometric progression and to stand up awake in the present situations. Well, another set of people seem to be ignorant in any sort of lockdown rule remains ineffective for them. I am waiting for "shoot at sight" order for such people from the government. Going to bed with fear and again getting up to check the elevation of number of affected, number of deaths, taking care of family members is not a desirable task but if you never threw the plastic bag at the beach, if you never had antibiotics on your own, if you took the first outbreak seriously, this "today" would never have come. Now, looking at the number of deaths everyday and great countries almost to shut down, humanitarian grounds will definitely make me feel sad but on the other hand, the birds chirping? The visibility level increasing? The smog level diminishing? We had almost forgotten the real face of our fresh and green Earth for decades.

          Abdul Kalam had dreamt of "India 2020" but this comes up with the Earth taking the price for all the minute deeds that we have done and were not supposed to. For every one misdeed, for every ignorant behavior, for every pinch, for every assault that we have laid on Earth~ the lex talionis, Divine Vengeance and Karma demanded and deserved by Mother Earth is not going to be tiny. It will make us understand only in the language we do- that is, by taking away our loved ones. It will do its maximum to restore all that it has lost. And, human beings, be ready to face the challenges that are laid down one after the other because 2020 is not even the trailer!