Apparently, the unending lockdown seems headed for a conclusion—or does it really!?! What we each will remember the lockdown for once it is really over and done with will depend on various factors, not least on ourselves, for the simple reason that we’re each having varying experiences! COVID-19 apart, for some it has been a period of trauma with jobs gone for a toss overnight and little or no means of sustenance in hand, to others a period of forced rest, given the kind of hectic schedule maintained through the year.
Time for serious change
To some the lockdown has been an extended period of ‘spring cleaning’, change ruling the roost! To others, a time to catch up with pending matters (including much-needed sleep!) and to yet others an opportunity to make up for the lack of quality family time, not excluding prayer time. To those of us involved in the media apostolate, the best exercise will have been to re-examine on the one hand the kind of involvement in evidence on our part vis-à-vis the media and, on the other, to check on our proficiency at the unavoidable use of language as a medium of effective communication, which to some might be English, to several others some regional language.
To the serious journalist, mastery over a given language is something indispensable in that it comes with constant updating and upgrading, the foundation for such an attitude being a keen sense of openness and a willingness to leave no stone unturned, even if that means going the proverbial extra mile in a bid to improve one’s prowess! This of course would make no sense to those who imagine and even have no qualms about claiming vociferously that it is enough to have a “workable knowledge of English”, whatever that means! Indeed, such an attitude as this can never bring the serious Catholic writer—be it a priest, religious or layperson—any sense of fulfilment in the performance of one’s role. It follows then that if one considers the way one reads and understands as being of no consequence, or the way one speaks and writes as of no importance, one ought not to be involved in the media per se!
A Test of Faith
To the practising believer, the lockdown has proved to be an eye-opener in more ways than one what with places of worship all shut and thus beyond reach. ‘Online’ suddenly became the new buzzword and password for either dropping or observing the Sunday obligation, not to mention the inactivity on the front of the generally most hectic liturgical week in the calendar, priests themselves becoming invisible and gamely coming to be classified under ‘non-essential services’. Whilst to some this came as a boon as the very question of waking up to attend Mass, be it on a weekday or a Sunday, automatically fading into oblivion, to several others, not being able to receive the Eucharistic Lord on Sunday and during Holy Week proving to be a terrible disappointment. Worsening the trauma of such faith-filled individuals is the now undue delay in the opening of our churches, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, as Archbishop of the most populous multi-rite diocese in the country and President of the CBCI cautioning against the opening of churches without proper Special Operating Procedures (SOP) in place. Methinks there need be no further delay. We could well be quick with putting the bare necessary protocols in place and starting off immediately and then observing closely the reaction of people and the trend of participation in church services, constantly reviewing the situation and the measures adopted. Further, even as reports and images of the lockdown and social distancing adopted at the times of epidemics in centuries past keep circulating, we need to be more innovative in terms of adopting measures more suited to the modern day. Indeed, if, considering that we are in the computer-internet-robot age of the 21st century with the latest technology on all fronts at our fingertips, we stick to observing primitive procedures, what progress can we claim to have made?
Justice is to LIVE for
Strangely, while the godly side of human beings was sharply in evidence during the prevalent situation, the inhuman side of humanity manifested itself ever so harshly in the double murder of the father-son duo, Jayaraj and Fenix in Tuticorin, Tamilnadu. The speed with which the county and the world were made aware of the Police brutality that came into play for a crime that wasn’t ever committed, viz, allegedly keeping their shop open beyond the closing hour of 8 pm is significant, even more gratifying being the moves made by certain social activists especially Catholic Priest-Advocates to initiate due legal proceedings.
As Christians, our first priority is supposed to be FORGIVENESS as has been manifested in so many instances. Nevertheless, the Christian conscience really needs to perceive how justice done to the deceased and to the family of the victim cannot be genuine unless it includes reformatory measures that can astutely prove duly deterrent to all those who brazenly dare to take the law in their own hands. We must then propose and even unyieldingly demand identical treatment of those guilty of the heinous crime the details of which are too crude to be repeated, be it verbally or in writing. The difference in the penalty should merely be in the items used in the sordid torture of the victims, the lathi and other ‘hard objects’ replaced with electrically operated metal rods and electrodes (a la methods adopted by Kim Jong-un, the supreme ruler of North Korea), essentially proving that punishment and forgiveness can indeed go together.
Social distancing
Amongst the latest news on the COVID-19 relief issue are two stipulations of specific interest in relation to the unlocking of the lockdown: 1) advice of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra [CM] to Ganapati mandals to keep their celebrations at a low key this year and to thus set an example for the world to emulate; and 2) one is not allowed to travel beyond 2 kilometres from home, except to or from one’s workplace, “or face the consequences”. Firstly, with no guidelines for the Ganpati mandals yet in place, how low the key to Ganesh Chaturthi 2020 will be is anybody’s guess! As for stipulation 2, all one would like to ask is: ‘is Maharashtra becoming a police state or what!’
It is strange that while the government has come up with guidelines for the opening and regular functioning of churches and other places of worship, it merely advises mandals to keep their celebrations low-key! While churches continue to be in lockdown mode ostensibly until SOP are in place, mandals appear to be given blanket permission to proliferate. In the first place, on what grounds is the formation of mandals being permitted this year at all? With droves of so-called devotees going mandal hopping for prasad during the 10-day festival and food on the final immersion day, not to mention pollution of every hue generally resulting annually from the celebration of the Ganesh festival, how dare the Government overlook the distinct possibility of the spread of the deadly virus! Or is it that the CM delights in actually trying to pull a fast one on the minorities by way of an Ostrich-like burial of its head in the sand? In all fairness, it must be emphasized that if Muslims could be made to forfeit the celebration of their most significant Id and Christians their celebration of Holy Week, shouldn’t the CM have unconditionally dropped the Ganesh celebrations this year rather than gloat over how certain groups have approached him to apprise him of their decision not to host the dahi-handi pyramids this year or about how he has convinced those concerned to have their Ganesh idols no taller than 4’?
Partiality & Favouritism, the name of the game
Unfair, Mister CM! Unfair!! Your actions reek of the stench of partiality no less! Calling for meetings of municipal and police personnel after dishing out lame advice to the ‘mandals’ is an act of favouritism and not the done thing in the given situation concerning the pandemic – that exercise should have been indulged in before giving out such advice! As for setting an example of restraint to the world in terms of celebrating a festival – just forget it! Countries the world over will be waiting to offer you better examples and saner advice, Mister CM!
Ladislaus Louis D’Souza