Bhopal: Times are bad. A terrible drama has again begun to unfold, deepening the people’s pathos. The dreadful virus has gulped down hundreds of lives in the state and in its capital. In the first wave, the virus reportedly spared the youngsters. In the second, it has taken many of them into its icy grip. It has felled many a leafy tree in the spring.
As the bodies are piling up, there happens to be a lack of space in cremation grounds and in graveyards in the city. There’s blossom everywhere, though. Blossom feels tonally wrong, like party poppers at a funeral.
Every time an ambulance passes by a residential area, a few curious eyes peep through the windows. The eerie siren of the ambulance fills their heart with horror. They say to themselves: perhaps, another corona patient is being taken to hospital. Such is the fright. Such is the anxiety. Such is the foreboding.
The virus has walloped the city with more ferocity this time. It is as pitiless as the mid-noon sun in the Sahara. The capricious character of the virus has shocked the doctors and surprised the scientists across the world.
It is pouncing on more than 10,000 people every day in the state. This is the reason why, whenever an ambulance passes by, the residents peep through their windows with fear. That makes them think who it is? Who it can be tomorrow? For the first time, people want to know whether they are safe.
The roads are barricaded. The unfeeling iron bars are there on each thoroughfare in the city to welcome passersby. Maybe, those barriers want to say a wayfarer – return home or it may be you tomorrow.
No sooner does the rambler near the barricades than an ambulance goes past. Its creepy siren chills the hiker. Then another ambulance passes by, still another. It goes on and on. The pedestrian says to himself the shadows of death are evaluating all men. The only way out is to stay indoors.
