Editor,
A large share of India is passing through a phase of heatwave.
Social media is overactive in producing series of tasteless jokes revolving around the heat. Even that ‘great Sanatani’ custom of Sati is being drawn into the scenario. Yes, those who are trying to lie on bed (despite enjoying the luxury of staying at home and avoiding the scorching heat) are getting reminded of burning in pyres like those widows of few centuries ago.
Had these ‘heat sensitive’ lot possessed minimum heart within their ribcage, perhaps they would have refrained from making a mockery of the unfathomable torture meted to Hindu women across several centuries.
In this heartless, insensitive, selfish scenario, is it too much to expect minimum sense of ethics from these ‘heat-tortured’ souls? Aren’t innumerable unprivileged hardworking souls bravely negotiating these harsh conditions with their heads held high? Can’t this ‘vulnerable’ lot see in their own eyes how, despite the centigrade surpassing 40 degrees, labourers are painting towering complexes by swinging on ropes, or are engaged in construction of buildings? Who are driving rickshaws autos e-vehicles and buses in these conditions?
So that the privileged can enjoy luxuries right within the comforts of home, the gig workers are frantically rushing on bikes with Himalayan loads upon their shoulders to deliver the ordered items within astonishingly narrow timeframes. The less said about the farming community the better.
In contrast, the privileged class is painting the town red, revolving around the heat, despite enjoying the luxury of staying at home/office and having fans, ACs, refrigerators and cold drinks. What a deluge of insensitivity heartlessness and obscenity!
Actually the ‘educated’, privileged class simply does not recognise any other creature, barring their own. This is the reason that a certain Bollywood superstar had dared to tweet (following a certain ‘god’s’ attainment of that statistical jugglery of century of centuries) – “From now onwards, whole India can sleep peacefully at night.”
In this country, millions of our own citizens (including children) have to spend nights with pangs of hunger. Countless are simply homeless, sharing space with street dogs and rodents. Yet all can afford to enjoy ‘peaceful sleep’ at night just because a cricketing superstar has achieved a personal record.
Either these suffering millions do not get counted as citizens or their plight should never matter at all in ‘national consciousness’. No wonder why, when billions of the poorest of the poor were marching on the highways following instant lockdown on starved stomachs, with many collapsing on streets, the privileged lot were posting photos of consumption of Dalgona coffee on Facebook to count the number of ‘likes’ and beating pots and pans on balconies, or going over the moon just because our spacecraft has landed on the dark side of the lunar body; never mind if darkness of poverty and hunger continue to dominate over majority of the Indians.
This is simply a heartless society. And amidst such insensitivity, it is natural that the privileged class will continue to play the role of ‘victim’ and have much fun over the heatwave on social media.
Salute to the ocean of faceless, unsung, marginalised hardworking souls on the occasion of May Day for building the infrastructure of the nation through honest toil and perspiration without creating minimum fuss.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2 /403,
Peerless Nagarm, Kolkata