DailyOh! Coronavirus makes namaste cool, to the dead guru who had better security than Kapil Mishra got
Covid-19 is making the world sit up and take note of the desi namaste. Also, while Kapil Mishra is apparently getting Y+ security, we take you to a clinically dead guru who had Z+ security.
Namaste.
Is there anything to like about a Tuesday? Well, it is not as bad as Monday, but it is not as good as a Friday either. But this Tuesday is just bad because of all the confirmed coronavirus cases that we're dealing with from all around. And all of us have probably, grudgingly, arrived at the worrying conclusion now: there's no way to stop this epidemic. Covid-19 has hit home.
The world is slowly shutting down. Economies are on a downward spiral. People have had to flush our travel plans down the drain. Stores are running out of hand sanitisers, and online deliveries are no respite either. No one is delivering a bottle of sanitiser to your home.
There is no need to panic. We need to work together, take small yet important measures to ensure self-protection. pic.twitter.com/sRRPQlMdtr
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 3, 2020
We have all been fed on a steady diet of Hollywood films that spoke of apocalypse as an alien attack, rising water levels, asteroids striking and what not. But did any of us ever imagine that a virus will bring the world to its knees? The coronavirus scare has made us rethink how we greet each other. Did you see that viral video where German Chancellor Angela Merkel was snubbed a handshake? Good move, we say.
Not shaking hands, don’t care who it is... #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/Xs0BWdD5YQ
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 2, 2020
It is also time we went back to the namaste, which ensures you greet someone but not let those germs greet each other. You are not thought of as rude either. We know hugging and those air kisses seem phenomenally cool in front of the humble namaste. But safety over coolth, we say.
Talking of greetings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bidding goodbye to the place he's most popular in: social media. He went on to social media to announce that he'd been thinking about giving up on social media and he may go off Twitter, Facebook YouTube and Instagram on Sunday. This sent social media into a tizzy and many couldn't sleep the night as they vowed to quit if PM Modi did so. NoModiNoTwitter began trending on Twitter. The next morning, he ended the suspense. For a day, he would hand over his social media accounts to women who "inspire us".
This Women's Day, I will give away my social media accounts to women whose life & work inspire us. This will help them ignite motivation in millions.Are you such a woman or do you know such inspiring women? Share such stories using #SheInspiresUs. pic.twitter.com/CnuvmFAKEu
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 3, 2020
That brings us to our Word Of The Day, inspire. Like a lot of English words that we use today, inspire also has its roots in Latin. Inspire comes from 'inspirare' which means "to breathe or blow into". The word 'inspirare', in turn, owes its origin to the word 'spirare', which means 'to breathe' (respiration from the same root). Around the 14th century, inspire began to mean 'to infuse (as life) by breathing'. And today, inspire means pretty much the same. So when you fill someone with the urge to do something creative (and mostly positive), you inspire.
PM Modi is giving up his social media accounts to the women 'who inspire'. For a day, International Women's Day, March 8.
It was at 8 pm on another 8th when an announcement by the Prime Minister made India stand still. And then stand nearly still in queues for several months. It was November 8, 2016. 8 pm. Middle-class India, just back from an uneventful Tuesday (oh, that was a Tuesday too!), had just about reached home. PM Modi announced demonetisation. Many in India looked up from their dinner tables at the television set and wondered exactly what it meant. Where were you when demonetisation struck? Well, wherever you were, if you were in India, you will remember what the next few hours were like. Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were gone in one half-hour address. Over the next months, India lined up in front of ATMs and banks, trying to deposit their demonetised notes. The demonetisation was to curb black money and terrorism. Did it? The jury is out.
Tuesday is also the day when Paris's iconic Louvre museum is closed for general public. The Louvre has now been shut down over coronavirus fears. The museum, world's most famous, is visited by about 30,000 people a day. Now that the museum is closed, do you know how much money it is set to lose from just ticket sales in one day?
30,000 visitors a day. The Louvre charges 17 Euros as admission fees from general people. If you're under 18, you can get in for free. If you're between 18 and 25 and a resident of the European Economic Area, you can also get in for free. On their website, Louvre said that almost one-fifth of their visitors every day are under 18. That makes the number of people exempted from buying tickets every day 6,000. Out of the remaining 24,000, let's say 4,000 fall in the 18-25 resident of European Economic Area bracket. That leaves us with 20,000 ticket buyers a day. 20,000 x 17 Euros = 340,000 Euros. In INR, that amount is Rs 2,76,32,283. Rs 2.76 crore.
If the musuem doesn't reopen soon, you can only imagine the losses it will have to deal with. The museum is home to the world's most famous painting, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Many of these 30,000 daily visitors go to see the Mona Lisa and of course, 'check in' into the Louvre, where they then take that coveted selfie with the Mona Lisa. Such is the craze that the Louvre keeps its website updated on the location of the Mona Lisa. No one would want to navigate through thousands of people and land up at an empty wall, right!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by The Louvre Museum (@thelouvremuseum) on
From Paris, we will bring you back to Delhi, where BJP leader Kapil Mishra has just been given Y+ security, say reports. In the Y category, you get a security cover comprising 11 personnel. That means 11 people will be around you to keep you 'secure' 24x7. While Kapil Mishra's security cover is making people in Delhi see red, let us tell you of a clinically dead person who was provided with Z+ category security. Z+ is the highest level of security a civilan in India can get.
2014, Punjab. A team of doctors declared a spiritual guru called Ashutosh 'clinically dead'. He suffered a heart attack on January 29, 2014, and was eventually declared dead by the doctors. But in India, godmen don't die-die like us commoners. Their link to their respective gods are said to help them attain a state of 'samadhi' (meditation) while the rest of us die. So even though Ashutosh retired from worldly affairs, his Z+ security could not retire. So 25 personnel from CRPF and Punjab Police stayed guard outside Ahutosh's 'samadhi', even as our godman 'rested' inside.
His followers still believe that he will come back to life one day. They even went to court and won the case, brought the body of their guru back to his ashram and preserved it in a freezer. The low temperature is keeping in mind Himalayan temperatures, where meditation comes easy. Not for us. For godmen.
As you let that sink in, we take your leave. See you tomorrow.