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THE EDITOR: I managed to hear the subdued sound from a seemingly distant loudspeaker, which is strange for a loudspeaker, for we are always jarred on an early Saturday morning in Sunkist, Phillipine by the harsh sound of the “big fat pepper shrimp” vendor on his truly loud speaker. I peeked out of curiosity.
It was an unusually soft voice coming in at long intervals from a neat looking white Wingroad vehicle: “Doubles…aloo pie,” the voice lacking in the loud annoying repetitiveness of the average vendor, saying what it said as if it just had to be said, with no urgency behind it. It’s the sound of silence of the man driven to this, with thousands just like him, just yesterday with the means to satisfy his needs big or small, now driven to despair to take care of a family who awaits him.
And I find parallel in the Gulf City I visited on Monday, my wife wanting to sit in her favourite food court, on this occasion to have a Christmas lunch when none could be had elsewhere, being part of the lovely sound, not of silence, but of the kind that made music to your ears – of people around tables, all colourful, chatting and laughing, with bags full of goodies bringing in the festive season. But not a chair was to be had, all cordoned off, almost skeletal, with none to flesh them out and make them alive.
And also the petite sales girl in an empty store smiling at us from within, walking out with verve and energy to welcome probably her first customers for the day, after our tentative, almost furtive glance in her direction, eager perhaps to allay her fears of a risky Christmas investment. Or if not, hoping that we would buy something to at least warrant the penny she would receive at the end of the week from her sombre-looking store owner in the background.
The above are some of the symptoms of what we have become as a people, a microcosm of the larger picture, desperate, denied of our simple pleasures, our dreams in limbo, with the threat of more desperation, more denials, more stifling of our dreams.
All this because of a virus whose power seems as elusive and unpredictable as the wind, making those at the helm trying to counter it and save the people look like little schoolboys grasping at straws in the wind, forever locking us down, forcing us into a corner until our last breath is snuffed out.
But the latter is not so much a criticism of their efforts. It is merely a pointer of how “…Man, proud man/Dress’d in his little brief authority/Most ignorant of what he is most assur’d” (Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Act 2 Sc.2 117-120) can be so puny against nature in its fury, as his helplessness against the recent tornadoes in the US, the floods in India et al.
Which, of course, is to presume that covid19 is a natural phenomenon, arising out of nature’s arsenal much like the Spanish flu of the past which killed millions. But there are so many conspiracy theories to contradict this, suggesting that it is the same man, “dressed in his little brief authority,” wanting to satisfy his natural ilk to dominate all others in true Machiavellian sense, using covid19 as the means to that end, as they have always been doing, in a world whose history is one of conquest and domination of the weak by the strong.
But we are all in a muddle over the yea or nay over these arguments and counter arguments. All we can do is ramble on as I am, hardly like Nat Cole’s Rambling Rose, but twisted “hither and tither and yon” in a world slowly crumbling because of the ravages of delta, averaging 25 deaths per day of late and 700 infections. Now omicron is on our doorsteps and already killing one in England when from earlier reports by Dr John Campbell and his South African sources, it was supposed to be less lethal.
But we have life so far, and with the protection of our vaccines and boosters, we can hope to have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail
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