Disclaimer – This post only reflects the opinion and views of the author, not of the organization.
Day 9 of Lockdown –
Going to sleep at 6 am, waking up at 6 pm, wondering what went wrong in your life and trying hard to be productive but failing before going back to sleep again. Getting into unnecessary fights with family members over trivial issues then regretting it, knowing that you are stuck with them and have nowhere else to go for at least 12 more days if not much more. Welcome to the worst vacation of your life.
It’s hard to believe less than a month ago we were going about our daily classes, finding Corona only in memes, not knowing about the truck that’s about to hit us so hard, so soon. Taking the beautiful pink sunsets for granted, a majority of Manipalites wanted a reason to go back home for a few days, but the even semester, being a short one filled with events doesn’t really give that opportunity.
But thankfully the ever-caring Chinese liberal government stepped up to help out the distraught souls.
In between multiple colleges being shut and the Manipal students wondering if the college will even give a holiday let alone a vacation. The Dakshina Kannada floods last year, fresh in our memories. Would the university still keep the college open? The notification comes that the entire university except for Medical students have been shut down for a week, much to the joy of so many people. That’s when the problems began.
With such short vacations, the majority started to wonder if it’s worthwhile to stay back or if it is better to go home. While the people who were just looking for a way to go home had already finished packing their bags and booked their flights. “Something is better than nothing” prevailed, and by the time these people got on their flights to go back home, the vacations had been extended for 1 more week, somewhat causing more chaos.
Parents either told their children to come back as soon as possible even though public transport was really unsafe or for their wards to stay back. Manipal was being considered to be really safe amidst the rumors that the virus cannot survive in the heat and the Manipal even semester is a champion in that. While the majority took the chance and went back home, leaving behind essentials including the likes of their laptops, everyone was in for a big shocker in the coming days.
Summer Vacation Preponed. College to reopen after May 31st.
And just like that, the majority of the students left for a horror vacation. Some were ‘lucky’ enough to go back home to their loved ones, some had to stay with distant family members, but the final fact remained, a majority left Manipal without saying their final goodbyes. For the people who were having their final semester, things ended just like that.
Even though there are supposed to be classes for a few days after college reopens, everyone knows that it will just not be the same. Looking at the current situation, it is hard to say if we will get to see the pink sunsets and have photo shoot sessions again at Endpoint even in June.
Who do we thank for the wonderful vacation?
No matter what anyone says, it is China. Regardless of rumors on how they Bio-Engineered the virus, they very likely did not as been proved by various non-Chinese media, but they are the very reason why it spread to the world, causing the entire world economy and people worldwide to suffer while they are on the verge of going back to normalcy again and having immense to gain from the worldwide crisis.
Why call it the Chinese virus even they never actually made the virus?
Because they knew about it for quite some time but suppressed any kind of news about it, let people travel with the virus all over the world and only when the virus blew out of proportion did the state-controlled Chinese media made it public. At this time while this is being written, China has reopened its “Wet Markets” – The exotic animal meat market which includes the likes of Bat meat (The root cause of COVID-19), dog meat, pangolin meat, and such others.
Let’s be honest, nonvegetarian people like me having chicken or goat is not more ‘humane’ than the Chinese eating ‘dogs’ since it is a part of their culture. The problem lies in the fact that they consume items that have not been termed to be medically safe, either because they are not medically safe or because nobody else in the world eats them so not enough tests have been done.
Even after banning the consumption of exotic meat previously during the last such outbreak, as soon as the outbreak settled, the Government lifted the ban. This time, they didn’t even consider banning even though they caused almost the entire world to shut down. No matter how much the liberal media defends China on this matter, it is NOT racist to call this virus the Chinese virus.
Among the two major governments that have ruled India during the current Information Age, one has relied a lot on spreading misinformation to confuse the people, while the other has suppressed information from reaching the people. Is any one better than the other?
That’s for the readers to decide and debate among, not that there are many time constraints now stopping people from debating.
Even if we look away from the direct effects of the virus that is devastating the world, and focus on the effects on India – Apart from the obvious economic fallout in an already economically weak nation with a huge number of people living BPL and weak healthcare infrastructure, we are already seeing glimpses of communalism, where entire religions are being targeted by the populace over the stupidity of a few.
People are still not taking this seriously and going out as if this is an actual holiday for them and they are VIPs due to which the Government cleared up the roads for their pleasure. And the very same people will blame the Government when they get the disease or see their close ones suffer. This does show the many faces of the Indian system, where the people expect the Government to do everything while they themselves do not do their part.
It is high time people just stop blaming the Governments and start taking actions for their own responsibilities or suffer the consequences.
But for now, all we can do is hope. Once this is over, no matter how bad the fallout is, People will enjoy the pink sunsets again at Manipal, go to trips to the various beaches surrounding Manipal, celebrate small occasions at The Laughing Buddha, fake their birthdays to get a free cake at Hadiqa/The Egg Factory and DeeTee will be full of people again. Till then, do not give up on hope, stay home and stay safe. We are all in this together.
P.S. – And do not hesitate to call COVID-19 as the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus, it’s high time the world takes steps against China even though at this point we need them the most. They have been pulling out a lot of antiques against single nations and bullying them for a very long time. I sincerely hope that the world can together combat the Chinese problem for once in terms of sanctions and setting up warehouses and factories elsewhere and isolate China with diplomacy. The last thing the world needs after this is a war.
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