Confined to the peripheries of my home, looking out the window at a mysteriously pink moon rising day after day, I have of late been forced to cogitate on the wonders of being alive, the hump in the lawn not unlike a camel’s back, and the quandary of not writing yet another webpage.
Looming, huge moons are known to have invoked latent streaks in bloggers. Shamans of doom are frothing at the lips. Soothsayers are having a field day. A lethal virus is raining maggots of death upon humanity across the continents. People are shying away from each other, afraid to touch, smile or speak. Their tracheas are clogged with mucus, their lungs have turned into lead. Death is in the very air.
There is a rock buried under that mound in the lawn, which the contractor tried to uproot but could not in spite of the robust earth moving apparatus at his disposal. So, he contoured it into a tiny hillock, the kind children love to climb and descend all day long. He also adorned it with decorative saplings, and it makes quite a sight when I look ahead at the budding day or a deepening dusk. It is almost as if a camel had died and an oasis had taken over the remains, minus the neck. It is a symbol of how an eyesore could be turned into a spot of elegance, too. Or, how a joyful occurrence could be hiding a craggy grief underneath. There can be so much filth under the glitter and Ritz of a Middle Kingdom.
Meanwhile, a congregation of clerics gathered in the capital of a populous Asian democracy. Even as the bewildered machinery of the state was scrambling to contain the contagion, having counselled a billion and a half citizens to retreat to the safety of their homes to escape the invisible fangs of the virus, the congregation swore to embrace the killer as the will of the Almighty. Platoons have been exiting the seminary with the gruesome agenda of disseminating both message and disease, and platoons have been walking back in, feeding and fattening the dans macabre. It all happened under the sore nose of the government, and duly exploded in its red face.
Segregated and quarantined, and hospitalised if found infected, the members of the congregation are not any less virulent. They have spat and spewed profanities on nurses and doctors, paraded themselves naked before petrified health workers, thrown around bottled urine and night soil. Elsewhere, coached by the malignant legion, teams of medical experts including women have been brutally assaulted by their cohorts.
Only time will tell the extent of their nefarious success, except the fact that the virus has been seized by them as a bewildering weapon to propagate their anti-evolutionary mission. Make no mistake, there is a method in the madness of these Covidiots. The confederacy of the fraternity is the worst kept secret of India. The faith in the Almighty must be spread till the last standing man on this land is a believer.
God’s in His Delhi — All’s right with the country!
I have been bobbing on the brinks of blogdom for a while now, and have gathered the proverbial moss about me. Unlike the shiny pebbles that others in the trade have turned out to be rolling down the rapid river, I have grown years of disuse that waves like seagrass in receding tide. Then the lump in the park makes me wonder how similar to riding a camel is the business of writing a blog. As you sit astride the hump of the grounded mammal, you are in immense danger of hurtling downwards as it unfolds itself to full stature. Once there though, you enjoy the gentle swing as your camel glides away, miles after miles. Descending the live tower could be another hazardous enterprise in absence of suitable caution. There is a story about a tourist who broke his neck at the end of a dream ride atop a camel, and all of it is true. So here I am, not sure I am going anywhere, nor ready to disembark yet, but the camel has grown weary and hungry. And the moss on my countenance is heavy.
Either way, camel, I tell my blog, it would be best if we move towards our oasis, even if it is a cruel mirage. You never know when you will fall prey to a virus and become a unit of data in a steep curve.
Exit the Ghost of Blogger
One Grain Amongst the Storm 
Sublime.
Thanks for stopping to read.
This posting is proof that you should write – even if you wish to write about nothing much and not even for a blog.
And don’t forget that a camel can go a long long time without water, and in that time covers many many miles without realizing it.
I agree with what you say about writing. It forces you to introspect, reason and reminisce. It leads you to discover meanings, and rediscover happiness. Stephen Kings says, ”We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” I have pinned infinite hope on the camel I am riding. Thank you, my friend.
Great stuff! Hump! (That comment (i.e. Hump) is quite meaningless but it made me giggle. That’s an amazing hump in the photo!
The structure is true and real, and at a stone’s throw from where I sit. Thanks for the second Hump!
A stick of dynamite could have blown the hump to smithereens. But they chose for the hump to stay – for a reason!
But for that hump, you would have been saved from reading this post. It is a complex symbol!
I can’t believe the deliberate evil displayed, not only by the religious zealots in your tale, but in other similar situations in a large Western country. Fair enough, they die and go to wherever, but it’s just criminal, recruiting reluctant, oblivious others.
May we all survive, not only the invisible virus, but also the malignant ignorance in so many corners of this globe.
The preposterous methods of the zealots are matched by the thinly veiled hypocrisy of the intelligentsia who indulge them on the pretext of principles of freedom. The Morlocks should be stopped before it’s too late.
It’ll never happen! And now, I know what Morlocks are.
Sorry to have scared you with that, but resist we must in the only manner we can.
I’m not scared of anything but human stupidity. On second thought, I have a lot to be scared of.
Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that I am in the midst of an once in a millenium type of existential crisis. While the earth is trying to heal itself as some optimists say, or their invisible God will protect them from any eventuality as some brainwashed covidiots believe, for some blogging could be one of the few options of escapism availble to an adherent of physical distancing and confinement.
I fully endorse what Bruce has said.
Maybe in times like these our redemption lies in some form of digital escapism.
If writing is our redemption, the journey is circuitous and long, and ridden with thorns. One must set one’s foot on the path carefully, step after step.
Nice to see you back!
The camel is out there still. Hope to see you oftener here.
Religion is the biggest curse, Covidiots derive their strength from it.
There are religions. Then there are crusades.
This is the most literary and thought provoking article I have read on the virus and its affect on humanity. Your “maggots of death” reminds me of the words of a child of about six asked to explain the disease on our news – “all these germs crawling about”.
I am proud to have earned that compliment from you, Derrick. The child did indeed put it so well.
🙂
Uma, in this piece you’ve shown that you can write about nothing (the hump) and everything (the ravaging of the world), with wit and poetry, which just demonstrates that our responses as writers are various and important.
Our world views are shaped by happenings around us, ordinary and overpowering, trivial and life-threatening. It is comforting to be taken note of by discerning folks. Thank you, Andrea.
You are such a good writer that I look forward to your posts. I hope you will keep blogging, but of course I respect whatever decision you ultimately make. But make no mistake about it, you are very talented and you have a lot to say that others need to hear.
I don’t need to emphasise the altered state of normalcy in currency today. Powers that be would rather cover up unpalatable cysts that fester and emerge to claim its mega pound of flesh at a later date. Thank you for words of encouragement.
Covidiots. Brilliant. Love the surrealist tone to this, and yet what we are living IS surreal. While there is a large segment of the population who is clinging to the illusion, I do believe that a good many are waking up or on the verge of waking up. Please don’t stop writing.
The price to be paid for the illusion could be unacceptably heavy. We need to keep recording our small notes to a hopefully cumulative effect. Thanks for your kind words.
You’ll be able to shake that moss off, easily. 🙂
Stay safe USP.
The moss may have fused with my face. Thanks, Divya.
I had to come back and read this again. Something about it ate at my conscience some. I have always said that in hard times, I could write more. But I have been quieted by this disease. I only write small bits and I have to nudge myself to do it.
I would miss it if I could not read your words, but I think it is more important for you to write for you. It seems the act of writing is much like therapy, sorting all the thoughts.
The image that keeps coming to mind when I read this is that of sitting on a camel very still and what will happen when he gets up and starts moving, and I am sitting on a precarious hump that I better hold on to if I don’t want to fall off.
I hope you don’t mind me using your words for my own therapy. It really did help me to start thinking this over, about why I am not writing my book.
I believe in God, and I believe in Jesus, but I dismiss most religions.
What you have said about writing having a therapeutic effect is so true. Sometimes, I am surprised by what I end up writing, things what I want to say. Things it can take off my chest. It is somewhat like riding a camel when even though you are aware of the apparently linear nature of the journey, it turns out to be an eye opener. It can be liberating or terrifying, or even nauseating; you won’t know unless you do it. In my mind’s eye I can watch you astride, soaring ahead over the dunes, inseparable from your vehicle. I am glad you gave a thought to the metaphor.
Religion is a personal thing, and tends to shape us in our growing years. Dismissing other religions is a common impulse for most of us. Trouble begins when the religion is a crusade to conscript or liquidate the non-believers.
Write you must 🙂
I wonder…where is that camel going?
I’ve not been writing either. I seem to be floating in a realm of wonder watching the events unfold.
I shelter in place as this darkness passes.
I’m a Jesus follower. A believer in the invisible God. I don’t know these virulent congregants. They are not in my sheep pen. Perhaps they are goats.
Perhaps they are carnivores in goats’ clothing. No God should expect his followers to be so callous and dumb. The prevailing circumstances do have a surrealistic feel about them. The isolation may be deep but disturbing.
I guess I don’t know what you are referring to. Has something happened in India?
I assumed that you meant Trump and those who have attached themselves to him and his agenda while claiming to be Christians.
What has happened? Please enlighten me.
People of a certain sect have been congregating with the explicit intent to spread the disease and death, and spread they did.
Sounds like they are Christian in name only. They certainly aren’t following the teachings of Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself.
People have done, and do, so many terrible things thinking they are working in the name of Christ. If they aren’t loving their neighbor then they aren’t doing God’s work.
What a horrific and hellish act.
They call themselves Muslims.
Wow
Uma you have got a gift. Please write.
Hope all is well. I don’t know when I come back. Tomorrow? In a month? I cannot tell. Sorry for not visiting. Some days it is just too much.
Blessings.
These are testing times for the mankind. Hope everything is well with you too. Thank you for your kind words and blessings. Please don’t be gone for long!
Thank you Uma. I am not feeling well yet. Have a blogpost almost ready since last year, but cannot finish it. Hard times.
May God bless you. Please taken care.
Wow that is crazy, the worst case of this that I have heard of. Here, they just do big protests, but I don’t think it’s actually with the intention of spreading the virus. They just want ‘their own freedom’, they are not actively trying to spread it. What a horrible group of people!
Foolish they certainly were, and perhaps the administration lax, but I have not seen any authoritative ‘finding’ that it was a deliberate attempt to spread death. If that were to be the case, they would be tried for murder.
I absolutely love the poetic tone of this writing.
Thank you ever so much.
Nice blog, lov your writing style
Thank you ever so much.
Oh my, this is sobering, Uma. I hope that the situation has improved somewhat since this post was published. And I hope that you will feel the urge to write again for us in time. It can’t be rushed. Stay safe, stay well and cherish your wordsmith soul
Thanks, Sandra. You are a kind soul.