Vaccine-scepticism

One of the most bizarre things you hear today in the post -Covid world is that the pandemic was a conspiracy by giant corporates, drummed up to help sell millions of vaccines (evidenced by the fact that the virus test kits were ready well before the pandemic)....the virus could have been controlled by allowing more people to get infected…slumdwellers in India survived because of their natural immunity….the vaccine was untested and unsafe…blah blah blah.

The weirdest part of it is how much convergence there is of Left & Right in this view! The Left, of course, has its own special gong for China and the "successful" way it handled the pandemic by means of a 2- year lockdown (whereas in India, a 2-month lockdown is called idiotic and anti-people by the same 'thinkers'). 

So here goes….

Who are these giant corporates? 

What would have been the alternative to the vaccine at the time ? 

Did all those deaths not happen? All of us have lost near and dear ones in the pandemic and vaccine scepticism is very much in the Donald Trump school of thought

Is it possible to explain the pandemic dying down without accepting a huge reduction in the vulnerable population brought about by vaccination ? 

On the safety question, are there phase 3 randomised controlled trials for all the other commonly used vaccines today?

Should we not have vaccines against any disease and live in the slums ?

I'd also be interested to know why China suffered a late massive wave and why it enforced such a strict lockdown completely crippling its industrial production?

China, a socialist country did have a vaccine yet, like other non-socialist countries like Aus/NZ who had implemented successful travel embargos, the vaccine uptake was poor in China…hence the late outbreak in 2022.

In the ultimate analysis, the lockdown was another edition of the Sparrow Revolution or the One Child Policy...the ideological no-man's land where absolute power is unable or unwilling to take inputs from scientists ... 

During the Trump presidency, there actually was free mixing and no vaccine ...yet the USA had the worst death toll in the world...but I know that some in the Left will say that was not related to immunity but capitalism!

Where is the actual evidence that the kits were manufactured beforehand? 

Who won by causing millions of American deaths ? 

Why is China not culpable for being the source of the pandemic?  

Why was Xi's lockdown a 'good' lockdown and the rest 'bad' lockdowns?

It must be amazing to view the world in such clear shades of black and white !

The truth is there must be more to the outbreak than we know presently,but no way was it a manufactured or false pandemic. The vaccines have had their problems but were miracles of modern science in the speed at which they were worked through and genuine lifesavers at the time.

Time will tell if the vaccines will be needed again or indeed if there will be another pandemic like this. But let's not give the dogmatic and the corrupt another chance to blight our lives with their crazy views and plans.

Listening

As a child, and a lover of Western classical music, I used to feel terribly frustrated at the lack of opportunities to listen to this music beyond whatever records/tapes were owned by my family. 

There was just the one radio program, Classical Music at Your Request, where I once was able to hear the Sibelius 4th Symphony on my request..what a thrill that was in every way! 

There was a very shabby collection of tapes copied off original CDs at the German cultural consulate, Max Muller Bhavan, and these did sort of fill a gap...I remember being entranced by the Brahms 3rd symphony, conducted by Schmidt -Isserstedt, and mystified by Wagner (I'd expected unintelligible songs as in Italian operas, but unintelligible hollering in speaking voices was more of a challenge!) The British Council didn't "do" music, but one of the better venues to sample new music was, for a while, the Soviet record store, Vostok...the records here were very affordable and gave me my first exposure to Rachmaninov among others (I still regret not being able to persuade my mother to buy me the chunky box sets of Rimsky-Korsakov's innumerable operas!).

On trips abroad, I would be able to wangle perhaps 3-4 new tapes and copy a few others from my uncle's collection. I was adjudged too young to be taken to big orchestral concerts when visiting England, but was lucky enough to hear Nikolai Demidenko in a barnstorming all-Russian program at the age of 14, an experience that's always stayed with me.

There was, to be fair, occasional live music in Calcutta (as it was then known), mainly at Max Mueller Bhavan...usually small-scale recitals, where the perfumed snobs would indulge in heavy-duty name-dropping and nostalgia for trips to the Occident.

Despite the negatives, I was still able to accumulate a fairly massive CD collection by the time I reached college (by this time more music had become available to buy locally)...and then it all stopped. For a while, I indulged myself with pop and rock music...but more importantly, I had pretty much bought up all the music I knew of !

How wrong I was though...once YouTube came along, while it did sort of make my music collection superfluous, but it also opened up so many new doors and windows...no, music was not just about chomping on whether Karajan's first Beethoven cycle was better than his 3rd...while the recording industry has collapsed, technology has given a platform to dynamic young musicians from all across the world, as well as given a chance to hear the less-performed works and composers. Most of all, it's bridged the gap of economics and geography...no longer does one have to live in London, nor even visit it, to experience the joys of a Prom performance !

At the same time, I sometimes wonder if technology has empowered or confused us...when you have all the music ever played across the world on your phone, are you really able to sample it adequately or to appreciate it? I can remember the smell, the texture of the sleeves of every LP in my childhood home, I can remember waiting patiently for years to complete my first collection of the 9 Beethoven symphonies. But can you touch or treasure or even remember the bewildering smorgasbord of options flooding our eyes and ears today? Are young people today even aware of how wonderfully fortunate they are or am I just getting old?!

North (2021)

 

The High Street was deserted

More than usual

And the Severn, as ever

About to flood 

We scrambled up our worldly goods

And said goodbye to

A year of living dangerously

In Worcester..

Passed unmelted snow 

Glistening on fields under the sun

The sheep grazing hopefully 

Over the powder-flecked green

Going North

Parenthood (2021)

Looking into your eyes, 

How much of this makes sense ?

Moving house, Covid, snow..

Grown-up, you'll surely know

The truth, or at least guess,

What we now can't confess-

We're hanging on for dear life

When you look into our eyes

'Gabba (2021)

Such magic in these tragic times

Should not exist but to remind of

Forlorn mornings cradling the radio

Mourning yet another hearbreak

Till teens rolled onto parenthood,

And quiet meaning grew from doubt,

Those lost hours too were worth

This joy and now more than ever

We will fight not to lose hope,

These times too will have their meaning..

Painful desolate months must be so

Our children have another Brisbane moment!

শীত (2021)

জানুয়ারী মানে দুপুরবেলা পিকনিকের মজা নেওয়া

আত্মীয় -বন্ধু সবার সাথে চিড়িয়াখানায় যাওয়া

বহু কষ্টে সবাই মিলে একবার মাঠে খেলা

ফ্লুরীর রামবলগুলো যেন এক একটা গোলা!

বিকেল-গোধুলীতে পেট ভরে পুলী-পিঠৈ ধরে খাওয়া

সন্ধ্যাবেলায় গা ভাসানো গঙ্গাসাগরের হাওয়া

বইমেলা ঘুরে খুজতাম অজানা কেউ

আশা-পরিকল্পনা-ইচ্ছার ভাসত ঢেউ

ভবিষ্যতে ভেবেছিলাম হব একদিন দ্রাবিড়

আজ একরকম টিকে আছি,বাইরে ঘুরছে কোভিড।

সম্পর্ক (2021)

সম্পর্ক

আজকে যদি না পাও দু্ঃখ

শেষ দিন নাই বা পেও

গল্প শেষে লাভ নেই ভেবে

গল্প বলতে চেও।

ছেড়ে যাওয়া দিন,

ভূলে যাওয়া মুখ,

ভাবনা-ঝগড়া-প্রতিশ্রুতি

সময় পাবে না,খরচের খাতায়

আজই গুনে দেখ ক্ষতি।

খবর আসবে,ফুরিয়ে গিয়েছে

পৃথিবীতে কারও দিন,

তার আগেও কিন্তু ফিরত প্রান

সুখের আশা যতই না ক্ষীন।

শেষের পরে রইবে না কিছু-

দরজা হয়ে যাবে বন্ধ,

কি হতে পারত,কি বা বলতাম

মনে বাজবে শুধু দ্বন্দ্ব।