The COVID-19 endemic means different emotions to different people, but for many Goans I meet and talk to, there is a prevailing sense of emptiness. Social distancing, it seems, is a tall order in the merry month of May – a season of feasts, parties, picnics and weddings. Life seems to drag on day by day, a period of emptiness figuring out how to spend time; getting hooked to the TV and waiting for surprises, chocolates. But for a seasoned writer who has seen fire and seen rain, there is much to reveal and talk about.
To queries and SMS’ and callers, I remark that I take life one day at a time. I witnessed effects of Goa liberation war in December 1961, followed by Chinese aggression and Indo-Pak war and which meant for Bombayites-where I once lived — constant fear of aerial attacks and night black-outs. My journalism days in Goa, had its own share of tension-filled days. God was my refuge in times of loneliness and mob attacks. Surviving crisis after crisis comes the thought that we are all pilgrims on earth. Psalm 84 verse 5 states ‘Blessed is the man whose heart is set on a pilgrimage’. For pilgrims, wars and disaster are easily taken in stride. Psalm 91 verse 3 states, ‘He (God your defender and protector) will keep you safe from all hidden dangers and from all deadly diseases….
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In Goa we are relatively safe but in places like Mumbai, people are living on the edge. Living beyond hope. Scriptural reading can lift us up from our sense of darkness. Happiness is not a future date when the blessed lockdown will be lifted, normalcy returns and we are reunited with our beloved ones. Happiness is turning our backs to the world and assuming the Spirit that God has given us. Says Romans 8 verse 15 in the Bible: For the Spirit that God has given us does not make you slave and afraid. Instead the Spirit makes you God’s children…
At the start of the 20th century, when the world tourists flocked to Goa to celebrate the new millennium in style, some local voices expressed foreboding of the end of the world. Surprisingly, not a word is heard about God’s intervention in this pandemic , except by an army of secret intercessory groups. Crazy but pornography is the ultimate obsession.
It still seems politically incorrect to mention God or a higher power during the TV discussions seeking his intervention. The phrase “Oh my God” is a stylish one used in Hindi TV serials. Over-smartness and pantheism takes over as the new doctrine. Without Lord Almighty, life holds no meaning or purpose and drags on hopelessly. Nothing comes out of heaping wealth, or changing jobs and wives and trying every kind impurity. Every action has a reaction. Even before God, nature rebels at the sins of men as it happened in Old Goa in the 16th century, which some historians attributed it to the then prevailing lifestyle of promiscuity.
Post-Liberation , the Mandovi bridge collapse at Panjim caused road traffic blockade between north and South Goa and sloweth the pace of living. It was back to the good old days of ferrying, and social close-ups. Pace of living slowed down. In present crisis Goa’s mad rush towards a city-state has got a jolt.
To conclude, let us join hands with the authorities to fight against the pandemic. Let us also intercede for the conversion of hardened hearts that attack our brave warriors at the frontlines , the doctors, the nurses, police and even funeral groups burying Corona victims.
