DailyOh! Trains finally taking migrants back home. Lockdown to stay till May 16
Hi there,
We have got some good news and some bad news and we want to totally begin with the good one because we got to make a beginning somewhere. The first migrant train departed this morning from Ligampalli in Telengana to Hatia in Jharkhand. The government has been saying that it has handled the crisis better than other countries by pointing at data to prove that it is better placed than the US and many European nations in controlling the spread. The government’s critics have been, meanwhile, pointing at stories of migrant workers walking thousands of kilometres on foot with some even dying on the way.
Ever since the lockdown was announced on March 24, so many have been struggling to find food. Governments, NGOs and individual citizens have tried to help but still many have gone hungry. Many are still going hungry.
Those walking back have only had biscuits to curb their hunger pangs. Some didn’t have even that. So, it is good news that finally trains are being arranged to send them home.
But talking of hunger pangs, haven’t you ever been embarrassed by your stomach growling at the wrong time? The sounds the stomach makes is its way of telling us that it is empty. More often than not, it chooses to do the growling when not just us but even others can hear it talk – like a serious office meeting, or maybe even a date. Next time the pang hits you and you begin to twist and turn in your seat as a way of telling the stomach that it has been heard and will be taken care of, relax and tell yourself this is natural, happens to everyone. The question is why.
What we hear is basically the motion of the muscles that contract in our digestive system. The growl is basically the sound produced by the fluids in there and a little bit of air present. Now, this sloshing of fluids happens even when there is food in the stomach, but the food acts as a buffer to the slosh. You can say the sound is produced, but cut out. And these are not unnecessary sounds. Physicians can make out a bad sound, from a good one. Basically they can listen to it and tell us if there is a problem in the stomach like obstruction in the digestive passage. The physicians can then prescribe medicines to fix your system.
What a physician can do, a quack can’t. But can a placebo do what your medicine can’t? That’s a tricky one to answer. Placebo treatment is based on the idea that our brain can convince our body that a fake treatment is the real thing. That is basically saying that the power to heal the body lies with the brain. Homeopathy, you know, is said be nothing but placebo and the homeopathic medicines nothing more than “sugar pills”.
Placebo, our Word Of The Day, is Latin for “I shall be pleasing”. In the medical context the word came to be used in the late 18th century to describe a "commonplace method or medicine". In 1811, it was defined as "any medicine adapted more to please than to benefit the patient". Research does say a happy body is a healthy body but leaving the body to be healed only through happiness is a choice individuals have to make. Because who can decide it better for us than us, right? Wrong. Covidiots can’t be left to decide for themselves because any decision we take now as an individual has a bearing on every individual we come in contact with and then the individuals our contacts come in contact with.
Our Covidiot(s) Of The Day come from Godhra. The idiots attacked a police party that went to Gohya Mohalla in Godhra to close the entry and exit points because the area has been identified as a containment zone. The police personnel were in the area blocking the entry and exit points with tin sheets when they came under attack as a crowd started pelting stones at them.
Think and think hard. But no matter how much you think, you will never understand why someone would attack the police for doing their job. We don’t know if the residents didn’t like the tin, or the police personnel, or the fact that they can’t leave the area but isn’t that better than leaving the world or landing in hospital sick with Covid-19? If only these idiots would sit down and do some thinking before hurling stones and bricks at the police.
Since we are in Godhra, as in mentally, and Godhra is in Gujarat, we would like to remind you that today happens to be Gujarat Day. Also, Maharashtra Day. Okay, May Day too. But we want to talk about Gujarat because we were talking about Godhra although what we want to say about Gujarat has no connection with Godhra. It has a connection with Gandhinagar. The capital city of Gujarat is Asia’s greenest capital city. Over 50 per cent of Gandhinagar is under green cover.
Most Indian cities are unplanned but not Gandhinagar. Gandhinagar is one of the only three planned cities of India – apart from Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar. In 1960, the Indian state of Bombay was split into two states, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It was thought that Gandhinagar should be planned along the lines of Chandigarh; in fact it should be so planned that it rivals Chandigarh. The initial plan was to commission the work to American architect Louis Kahn so that it would rival Le Corbusier's work in Chandigarh.
But Gandhinagar named after Gandhi then decided to go the Gandhi way, which is the Swadesi way. So architect HK Mewada was handed over the task.
We did tell you right at the beginning that we have some bad news too. So, the bad news is that the nationwide lockdown has been extended for two more weeks. Which means we stay in till May 16. Also, trains will remain halted in the their tracks, apart from the ones taking migrants home, and planes will remain grounded. Some relaxations will be extended to areas based on which zone they fall in - red, orange or green.
In some more bad news we will like to tell you that all of India’s metro cities are in the red zone. Which means these are areas with high load of coronavirus cases or have a high growth rate of the disease. But before you drop your shoulders in disappointment, know that there are only 130 red zones as compared to 284 orange zones and 319 green zones across the country.
With a hope that more red zones will soon start turning orange from red, and from orange to green, and the locckdown is lifted
With that we will say bye to you for today.
People in the red zones, here’s a song for you. This is a song for all music lovers and who is not a music lover? So, this is a song for everyone: Ye Laal Rang Kab Mujhe Chhodega?
We will see you on Monday, till then - and beyond - take care and stay safe.
Also read: DailyOh! How Indira Gandhi used Rishi Kapoor’s Bobby to keep India home