Halfway There - Face-palm Sunday!

[A slightly irreverent article that explores a few of the new stories emanating from the halfway mark of the lock-down in India and its effect on some groups of people. It is also Palm Sunday for Christians, commemorating the start of Holy Week. Will it be face-palm Sunday?]

We are halfway through the current lockdown, if my calculations hold. So, what's it to be? Lights off, diyas on or Save the Grid, today? I woke up to this question after a sleepless night where Twitter warred with WhatsApp in my mind. Facebook kept changing sides, while the word-of-mouth, now greatly curbed by social distancing, kept cropping up in various feeds in the guise of "they say that". And all this whipped together with convincing messages from Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus which couldn't have popped into my hands at a more inopportune moment - all 499 pages of it seem to add fuel to the fire that is raging in my semi-stupor.

Fire, did someone say? Well, that's one of the tongue-in-cheek theories that has seen the light of day - at 9 pm on Sunday we can expect fires which emanate from the enthusiastic support of the chief's exhortation to light candles and diyas for 9 minutes. Social media has advanced the theory that earlier there was a "sound check" with the nation clapping and banging dishes to dispel the virus on March 22, now there is a "light check" with all lights being switched off while we light diyas, candles and mobile phone torches! Yes, modernization has kicked in. Eveready has published a full page ad today to support the light up. And Social Media is wondering if there will be a full-on disco on Day 22 when the lockdown lifts.

But Discos depend, as so much else does, on electricity. An early warning from the Power Guys (they decide how electricity is generated, distributed and controlled) suddenly popped up as an image of a letter asking all the Level 2 power guys to be on their toes on Sunday evening, to prevent a grid failure or spike or whatever else they want to call it. Immediately, the Knowledge Bank of Social Media (KBSM) went into high gear informing people that if they switched off then several things could happen (without going into the physics of it) - you might not be able to switch on again as there would be a grid failure, you might switch on to find all your favourite gadgets going bust due to higher frequencies/voltages and a few more weird theories too painful to recount. Government agencies hastened to dispel doubts by assuring people that we have a Grid as robust as our economy and there was nothing to fear. Did I hear that right?

KBSM then split into two - one group went into ancient scriptures to prove that the date (5+4) = 9 and the time was 9 and it was for 9 whole minutes, so there was a value to the number 9 which could rid us of the Corona Virus in one fell swoop. The other group pointed out that the date was 5+4+2020 which at best could be 13, the time was 21 on the clock ... you get the drift? "That's enough! I don't want to hear this. Nein!", I shouted in my nightmare. I had used a German word -- this other conspiracy theory says that this is connected to German actions leading up to a dark period in their history.

Interestingly, even Christian groups split into two over this. One group, I kid you not, said that this action is purely to eliminate Christians in India- the theory is that a demonic ritual is being planned so that 1.3 billion people can collectively get rid of 2.3% of the entire population by lighting candles! It has nothing to do with Corona virus, they assured me. And then the obvious misquotes from the Bible were forwarded. The other Christian group was elated with the leader's announcement! "Alleluia! He has chosen Palm Sunday for this program. It's a sacred day. And 9 is also a holy number for us Christians as it represents the Novena which is a 9-day prayer". So we should light a candle (standard stuff for Christian prayers) and say a Novena for 9 minutes. Not bad. If you can't beat them, join them.

Eventually I woke up. The more practical advice was on my phone.

• If you have to light candles please make sure you do NOT have 70% alcohol based sanitizer on your hands; more than the candle will light.
• If you switch off your lights, you can help keep the grid stable by keeping fans, refrigerators and even ACs running.
• Switch off sensitive electronic equipment 15 minutes before the great switch off and gradually switch things on as you need them - this may rob you of the pleasure of watching a certain TV anchor go nuts lauding the populace of the country!
• And finally, please charge your mobile phone to capacity in case you need the torch beyond the stipulated nine minutes -- and to share your experience with KBSM.

My last few articles on the lockdown have received one criticism, that I am happily satirical and even iconoclastic when I write, but I don't risk my own point of view. Well, then, here it is. The bartaan bashing and the diya lighting can serve as a rallying point for us Indians to show solidarity and togetherness in a situation over which we really have no control or can even predict. For the vast majority of the population this serves as a morale booster (of course, the earlier one seemed to be a virus booster too). And each person should decide what they would like to do without being pressurized by neighbours. It may also indicate that those in power can use this as an "obedience testing" exercise for the country -- but that is yet another conspiracy theory.