Wave After Wave

I have never celebrated birthdays.
Or New Year’s…or any other festival for that matter.
Once you exit the system, you need not follow their calendar either.
You can celebrate whenever you want, as long as you want.
But you can still observe the big days.
Because most people are still in the Matrix.
They can only go out, shop and smile on pre-determined dates.

This makes us petty and selfish.
We are dreading another wave and lockdown not because of the lives and livelihoods that will be lost.
But for all the petty freedoms we will lose.
We see people gasping for Oxygen, Farmers lathi-charged, students beaten up but we still vote for temples.
The only hope is that we at least acknowledge our selfishness.
Because that is all there is.
It is not even ignorance. We are capable of being cruel with full knowledge of our hypocrisy.
Perhaps the world was always this tribal and brutal.
Only now you get to see it in graphic detail.
Only if you wish to.
You can always dance the apocalypse away till the mob reaches your door.
Then somebody else will take your place to play the fool who still votes for religion.

• Punit Pania