April rains 🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️

Stop 🚫 , Look , 👀 , 👂 Listen and Think 🤔 by Kavita (reciting a poem from her Social Studies book)

Be safe, be cool by Elsa (who is really Kavita)

Thank you for the rain

So grateful for these past couple of rainy cool days. These past couple weeks got very hot and warm and, we even had to start putting on the ceiling fans. 

It's much cooler and, I can delude myself into think that the hot summer months are still far away. 

What is it about the summer that makes me dread it? It's how sluggish and humid it gets. How heavy the air feels and, how even the floor is hot to walk on.

But it also gets lush green. There's also mangoes and roof afzah with ice and milk. So there's that. 

Too good to be true

So far COVID19 hasn’t ravaged the so-called Global South as it’s happening in the Global North. Which is very interesting and, wonder how the scientists are analysing this. Is it simply because it's working its way from North to South? Or, is the heat of the Global South deadly to the virus? 

In terms of a political comment, I think it’s ironic because crises in Africa or Asia are so very invisible. And, even now, I do not really see any interesting analysis or conclusion of why Corona hasn't wreaked the damage at the same scale  yet in our countries. All we see are headlines like Bill Gates Warns Corona Will Devastate Africa. Or, Imran Khan calling for cancellation of Third World debt because poor countries don't have resources to handle Corona. 

We know that Italy's people are dying like flies and, they are running out of coffins and, that they have an elderly population. I've read quite a few articles about this. But why don’t we have the same low - intensity civil war death count numbers in Pakistan or India or Liberia yet? Europe and US have death rates literally similar to the kind of civil wars (armed by Western arms) and violent conflict you hear of in stereotyped Africa or Asia or Latin America.

Furthermore, the only reason we are in a global lockdown is, dare I say,  because the Americans and Europeans are suffering. Otherwise it would be business as usual. White people suffering? This is unthinkable. This is the suffering which we cannot have. This is the suffering which defines literature, great movies, our consciousness, our sense of history. White Man Suffer, History Created. White Man Suffering, Center of Reference. And, white people are suffering, then, we will centre it and , we will follow it. 

The same protocols to protect ourselves without demonising Africans should have been set up when ebola hit Africa. Instead of helping West Africa to deal with it , the whole of Africa was shut off. Instead of helping to improve West Africa's healthcare systems and, putting in place permanent measures, the world largely remained ignorant of the battle West Africans fought. The American CDC took a leadership role but after the fact, what do we have left to show for putting in permanent measures/protocols/systems to combat future epidemics/pandemics? 

The world is battling Corona 'statewise', not 'worldwise', if that makes any sense. 

For Liberia, I can say they took the right measure by announcing a lock down, a very strict one at that, for 3 weeks and, hopefully, this will limit transmissions and help a very poor government (still without decent, well equipped hospitals and staff, yes, what have the UN and NGOs done in the past 15 years, in collusion with corrupt regimes, half propped by them, following these hollow Governance frameworks without touching the violence and devastation of an extraction industry which has laid the wreckage of poor , hollow policies which did nothing to help build up the lives of the average Liberian). Having fought ebola, I believe Liberia will tackle properly and, we’ll see as little suffering as possible. That's why I am hoping for deep down. That somehow, Liberia will be spared because they have lived through ebola. 

Which leaves us with Pakistan. Yes, the leadership was inept, incompetent, clue less and infuriating when COVID 19 hit us through the Iran border. They set up a quarantine facility , something reminiscent of a hell hole as described in Muhammad Hanif’s Red Birds. Which idiots thought that was sufficient as the rich ass Europeans and Americans were falling like dominoes , even with their most advanced health care systems and hi-fi, droned and CCTV - ed human-right-concerned governments should get a Nobel Prize. Anyway, thankfully - thanks to linearity - we could get our act together and, prep up a healthcare and social system - never having funded to begin with because wars and the Army should get the best piece of the piece first - to fight of COVID19. So, kicking and screaming, Imran Khan was dragged to the altar, forced to marry Reason and Advanced Measures. Until the last minute, the man was debating the technicalities of lockdown versus total curfew. While crying for concern for the poor and delivering religious sermons, somehow Pakistan instituted a lockdown and, has even started doling out money and rations to the poor, to the majority of Pakistanis who survive on daily wages and, hand to mouth living. Sure, the faithful still fought tooth and nail to get inside mosques to pray but were beaten back. The clergy too was dragged with their long beards and all to condone the lockdown and that prayer can be offered at home. That you can bend and kneel and prostrate at home, amongst your women, and not with your bros in your local mosque. 

We were talking about the death count is so low here and whether the government may be hiding the numbers. My cousin said the numbers of those tested of course is not accurate. We don’t have enough testing kits nor the system to support it. But in this day and age, you can’t hide deaths. 

So, could it be that the virus really can’t wreak the devastation out here? For once, are the miserable and wretched going to be spared? Could it be that Muslims really are protected by the great Almighty? Could it be that the gods overseeing Africa too have decided to be merciful for once? “Africa shall be skipped over in this one.” 

Who knows? 

Herd Immunity (Mentality)

Comparing Corona to Ebola

A doodle a day

Deserted F-10 Market

I went to F-10 Market to collect a remittance from Western Union and, it was so depressed to see a lively market deserted and closed. F-10 Market is very close to our house and all of us have been coming here for more than 20 years for all our grocery and shopping needs. There's a deathly feeling to see everything closed. As much as we rationalise these measures as temporary and necessary to stop the disease 's transmission , we see this halt of every day life, every day grind, this closure of public space as a frightening sign. 

That we can no longer come out to shop, get tea from our favourite Quetta café, and meet friends , and then proceed to F-9 Park to attend a Study Circle. 

And we have no sense of how long for we will be stuck inside homes. There is also no sense of security that the government is technologically, intellectually and, ideoligically ready. Sure, there is a lot of life, togetherness and, activity inside our homes but I sorely missed the life we live outside our homes in public spaces. 

I sorely missed that life when looking around the deserted, closed market. I miss seeing people, those same shoving, pushing, unsmiling people. 

My feelings are thrown into a muddle. I complain so much about public spaces for being dirty and without any social order arrogantly but now I miss that mess. 

Maybe social norms will change after Corona. Maybe people will be more concerned about healthcare and, its access and quality for everyone. Maybe we will have more of a social consciousness, how to relate to each other, how to think about having a system where there is more buffers and security. Maybe we will finally start focusing more on what the social and equitable needs are instead of war mongering and, buying more guns. 

Walking in Corona

So, we went for a walk, with our face masks, sanitisers in our pockets. These are Corona times. It's spring and, it's just the perfect weather, neither too warm, neither too cold. Daytime can be hot if you are directly under the sun but inside our homes, we do not have fans on. Evening are a little chilly still. Flowers are blooming all over the neighbourhood, in everyone's front 'yards,' outside their perimeter walls, which are technically part of the city, but been beautified by homeowners. 

These days, everyone is walking. Everyone out in their walking shoes, faces covered with masks, and, the old are out there with their walking sticks. 

My father hasn't gone for a walk in the neighbourhood in years, housebound for the longest time ever, nursing a grudge since I can remember. It's really his choice, spend his old age chirpy and annoying, or brooding and, cranky. As long as one dons one cliché or the other. 

We stopped to pick up these beautiful blooms. The purple flowers look like some kind of an orchid, no? I was staring at the tree when this fellow came up and offered to climb up and pick me some. I politely refused but asked him what tree it was. He said he didn't know but they make a vegetable dish with the fruit of this tree. Later as we were walking he ran up to me and said it was a "kachnar" tree. There were other "kachnar" trees with white flowers too. 

Wearing a mask with glasses is a little annoying as one's glasses keep fogging up. 

When we got to the Park, there were hardly any kids. Only adults. I saw some children at another end, only. 

One normally enjoys one's time alone. One enjoys walks to the park with only Kavita and I. Something is so different now. There's a strangeness in the air, it's the strange feeling of fear and anxiety and restlessness that we are carrying inside us and then it starts hanging over us, in the air, during our evening walks, too.