By P A Chacko SJ
Sahibganj, April 19, 2020: Does Covid-19 teach humanity anything? Those who have eyes to see, they see. Those who have ears to hear, they hear. Those who have hearts to feel, they feel.
Covid 19 has a message.
It is a tiny virus. It has stopped all of us in our tracks from proceeding further.
We fear. It has the potential to wipe out our human generation in toto.
Before this tiny virus, our scientists and scientific achievements are nowhere. They are still trying to gauge its real potential. It has made prince and pauper stoop. It has humbled the proud of heart. It has questioned the worth of wealth. The coffins that roll out of mortuaries and hospitals tell the morbid truth that all are equal in life and death. We come naked into this world. We go naked into eternity bereft of wealth and power.
It has made the mad terrorist lay down his arms. It has silenced the lynching mobs and forced them to throw away their trident weapons and go hiding.
It made the prince of England its prisoner. So, too, England’s prime minister.
It makes no distinction between man or woman, politician or pedestrian.
The wealthiest and the most powerful nation America nurses the sad fate of thousands of its persons being turned to body bags and coffin contents to be interred in mass graves.
Colour or caste makes no difference before mighty Covid.
Priests and pundits are terror stricken. Shrines and prayer centres are getting converted to treatment centers. God comes down there in humble human service, not hidden in ritual rubrics.
The magic wand of celluloid stars has shrunk into a tiny toothpick. The catwalk stars of yesteryears are hiding their heads in cellars and caverns for fear of a tiny virus.
James Shirley’s words of his poem Death the Leveler have given added relevance during this Corona period:
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death’s purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust