Man vs Nature : Reflections in Mirror of the Pandemic

Every time Mankind thinks that it has become powerful enough to claim mastery over Nature, and declare independence from the Rule of God, Nature gives a tight slap on the face of Mankind. We should remain human and we should refrain from acting God. Individually or collectively, the message is loud and clear from the outbreak of the Pandemic caused by a certain Corona Virus, code named Covid-19. The question is, “When shall we learn?. Not a blade of grass, the best of our scientists can create on their own. They can only fool around, manipulating organs and genes with implantations, sewing, stitching and repairing living bodies at great cost to claim their genius! Just a blade of grass, we cant create on our own, and we claim to be master of Nature! Scientific explorations are like farming and tailoring of what exists already, and what is given to us by Nature, and no matter where we go, our identity is Human, not God. I am not advocating against scientific research, against development of tools for bettering human lives, but against turning a blind eye to the absolute necessity of balancing what we are taking away from Nature and what we are giving back to Nature. Global warming is real. Air pollution is real. Junk food is real. Nature had to tame human greed, human audacity and the superhuman ego of mankind. She did. With one swipe of her hand, she made the clutter in our heads evaporate. She is our real master. Mother Nature – the only visible and palpable manifestation of God.

Mother Nature is kind too. While she sent a demon out in the open to chastise us, she also blessed us with a solution – Stay at Home. The quarantine allowed us to control bad habits that we had picked up from our Culture.  The Q made us revisit our entrenched paths and reflect upon the possibilities of choosing alternative paths that were blinded earlier due to our habits. There is a way to forge friendship between two adversaries. Send them to a place where there is no one else to talk to. They will get exhausted after a good fight but they they shall get engaged more in talks and peace.  One of the reason, family members drift apart is because they don’t give time to one another, often misread as space for one another! Mother Nature has brought us together as family units. We are getting more tolerant of one another, more understanding and more accommodative of differences in our personalities; The best part is that we are respecting our differences as civilised people should. Mother Nature is teaching us lessons of civilised way of living – helping one another by lending a hand, maintaining personal hygiene and staying fit by reducing dependence on servants to assist in daily chores. She is teaching us to be more efficient at work too by forcing us to use technology without staying long hours in office bragging about how important is our work and how demanding our work was earlier.

Satellites keeping a watch from the sky are now able to see the surface of earth clearer. But this re-greening of earth has come at a heavy price. There are very few vessels sailing in the ocean, and even lesser number of vehicles plying on land. Thousands of commercial jets are grounded. Pollution is down, so is the price of petroleum. Stocks are falling incessantly and the economists are predicting the next big recession, the biggest so far in history of mankind. The erosion of wealth is a cause of worry but a graver concern is an impending food scarcity in the World. Corona has quarantined people of 210 countries in some form or other. The situation cannot be sustained for long as the World in 21st century cannot afford the indignity of witnessing a global scale famine that is already knocking at our doors. People have to get back to the agricultural fields and the fishing waters, and food processing factories need to open up along with the traffic of goods carriers. The Governments of the World have now started easing the restrictions on farming, fishery, production of essential commodities, goods transportation and movement of people with norms for social distancing and hygiene. In good time, the factories and other commercial activities shall resume. The educational institutions may reopen last along with the passenger carriers on road, rail and sky. But the world will never be the same again. Mother Nature has given us the time to reflect along with all the clues to bring about a change in our own individual mind, in our collective mind, and to redeem our humanity all over again, from our blind pursuit of material comforts.