Corona Virus Part 10, Coming Out, Job-loss Checks In U.S, Wish For Return of Cricket

         One of the cornerstones of my existence till now is I am an anonymous and imaginary force. I am restricted to imagination without concretely creating a real life story. I am living my life which does not require coming into open. But I work on things, write on stuff and affect areas which are far beyond my own self and affecting the society. While I do a lot of work anonymously, I think that important persons such as me should come into the open for much better application of force. From my present position when I talk about something – say people are dancing to my tunes, it can be struck off as imaginary though it can be a reality as well. You need to give a name to the anonymity, you need to come into open and not operate from fringes, you need to become a reality that you are for maximising the benefit people get from the aura. Since I am the one who is getting a lot of traction and everyone is counting upon, it would be good if I can shape up to reach that extent from where I can serve many.

          Till now, I operated comfortably in obscurity but what next and where do I take it to reach the next level. How do I answer the burning question as to who I am? So, how do I step up and build a profile to myself and give a name to myself. As I think of, I need to interact with councillors, corporators, ward members, chairmans, MLAs, Collectors, MPs, Ministers, Important personalities in the society and all the above in the hierarchy. I also need to interact with media –electronic, print etc. I need to remove the tag as a terrorist. I need to tour the country and the world, meeting eminent personalities and touching upon individuals. Foremost, I need to attempt and deliver speeches. Where are the microphones, speakers, dais and audience to listen the speech. Someone needs to help me out in all these endeavours. Where are these men to make it happen. I am not a rich person to afford all these. Where are the sponsors to help me answer the burning  question? After all, I have my many limitations and do not have necessary tools for doing all this, but still you can fail trying rather than not trying. Following all this on the ground will advance me from the internet or social media star to real life star and will enhance the returns to the public.

          A country which has been in absolute disorder in recent times is the U.S.A. Be it widespread corona virus pandemic or the unrest following African-American George Floyd’s death, the country has slipped into deep crisis. It has to be noted that the first event has caused the second. Floyd lost his employment due to the Covid-19 pandemic which further resulted in the tragic unfolding of the events leading up his death. Floyd came from Houston, a city where I lived for many months. When I worked in the part time job in a majorly black neighbourhood, I found that the unemployed blacks caused a bit of trouble but otherwise they are very friendly and helpful. If colour is the reason for the loss of his life, I would ask ‘How dare you do that’. The protests that erupted in 400 cities in U.S. and across the globe are the largest since the death of Martin Luther King. The death of a great man triggered huge protests while death of a common man in most horrifying nature in these pandemic times have triggered equal magnitude protests. T

          his happens when very offensive criminal-mind set individuals are disguised as police officers and treats the minute law-breakers with haughty and domineering attitude. Blacks to me are the sons of God and the disorder in the society is often reflected in their actions. No minority individual will break the law unless there is chaos in the society. The covid-19 has only aggravated the problems faced by the minority group which has resulted in the unlawful activities. The videos of the protests showed there are many looting incidents and activities of violence. That the protests reached the close vicinity of white house tells the severity of the situation and the pain they are going through. The protesters not having any respect for their President symbolises the mayhem in the country.

          But not everything is gloomy in the country. There is an extremely brighter side as well.  To re-iterate, the above tragic death and following protests stems from the unemployment in the country which is increasing in the recent past. My time in U.S. is very productive in generating a lot of employment and bringing it to historic lows. But the covid-19 wreaked havoc and there are nearly 42 million who filed for jobless claims. The unemployment rate which hovered around 3-4% earlier has reached 20% in the past three months.  This is double the previous high since the great depression in 1930s. The greatness of the government lies in the fact that it has risen to the occasion and provided additional $600 per week to each unemployed person during this period. This mammoth benefit to millions of people till July is a great move in offsetting the problems arising out of job loss. No president has ever signed a historic bill to give free money to 21.5 million unemployed people which has peaked to 42 million at a particular point. This huge financial aid also provide an incentive to the job-less people never to return to work in near future since they get much less if they work. 10 dollar an hour turns out to 400 dollar per week whereas the government is giving 600 dollars without doing any job. So the jobless people are protesting on the streets against the President while getting money from him for doing so. These are the atrocious levels of hardwork and greatness the country has been putting in these days to satisfy the unemployed people.

           The Indian government could have easily done the same to each poor labourer or migrant who have lost the job. The government could have transferred at least 10 thousand to each beneficiary per month when Rs. 1,80,000 was transferred in U.S. per month. Even going by the meagre Indian standards, 1/18^th fraction is highly achievable and the government squandered a golden opportunity to spread some cheer and paid holidays to most deserving people. To start with the government did not have the data of unorganised labour and where will they transfer money. We did a survey to find the deserving persons and this survey should have been taken up across the country to identify beneficiaries. The Aadhar program which has been started with a lot of promise has been diluted and there is no single source of truth of on-the-gound realities. Everyone we questioned in the survey is unaware of whom to approach or where to get help from. There has to be a social –benefit program where the poor and unemployed people can approach, get money-insured for job loss period and claim benefits from the government. As a result of mismanagement the poor suffered silently who have been reduced to further poverty. There would not have been mass migrations and the sorry state of walking back hundreds of kilometres. Developed countries are called as such because of their to-the-point man management systems. Every individual needs to be tracked and intervention has to be made to alleviate some of the silent pain. If not everyone this has to be mandatorily done to all the BPL populace. Like the DNA of a person, a mechanism to identify and shadow-follow an individual has to be there. It requires some grit from those concerned and technology to implement it. India need to take a leaf out of developed nations in this regard and make this important reform as soon as possible.

           Looking at the covid-19 statistics, there are a total of 67.04 lakh infected cases worldwide and 3.93 lakh people dead. In the past week, again 8.04 lakh new cases came up and 33 thousand passed away. This week, more than 8 lakh new cases have been registered which is a highest surge in single week so far. U.S.A, India, Brazil are the ongoing hotspots for the spread of the virus. While it took nearly two months to reach 1 lakh cases in India, next one lakh reached in 15 days. These ever increasing cases of virus and the lifting of lockdowns around the world would spell more trouble in the near future. This can be averted to a certain extent by gaining immunity from the virus. One good factor to note is only 3 in 100 who are infected died in India. This indicates the virus is not fatal and many have recovered completely from the infection. Another point to note is in U.S., 6 in 100 who are infected have died. This is double the count in India. The U.S. public eat highly nutritious food and giving fitness high importance by working out in gym. Their bodies are much fitter and built athletic and how come they have very less immunity than their Indian counterparts who are feeble and never workout. The secret is, as mentioned earlier, they are week inside and stronger outside or peripherally. Muscular strength is very temporary and doesn’t denote strength from inside and they eat highly junk food than it is nutritious. Because of these reasons they fell easy prey to even a weak virus. At least from now on, make some reforms and practise meditation, pranayama, Yoga or such kind to rise from within.

           Sports, both indoor and outdoor have been highly affected by the pandemic with no tournament happening and the Olympics postponed. Otherwise, the U.S. would have once again fooled the world with their superficial and artificial strength by winning in every competition. Other than Olympics, another major sporting spectacle in cricket, IPL was also not held. IPL should be at least held behind closed doors so that everyone will watch on T.V. and the tournament continued without any gap. In highly infected U.S., wrestling network, WWE fights are still continuing behind closed doors. That is the spirit one has to imbibe to live through corona. These big fighters who contract the virus very easily are still huddling among group, cuddling together and living with right spirit. The cricket players who are mostly in their early youthful years need not worry about the virus by taking necessary precautions. It is also not advised to take lengthy breaks away from action. Hence, it can be a treat for viewers to watch IPL during these times which uplifts the morale of low-lying people.