The Show Must Go On

 

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

We make all simple things complex for the human mind loves to play adverse, reverse and inverse games with life to make it vast, inscrutable and challenging. Man loves to fill his moments with loads of reality. If time according to John Barrow is God's device of  stopping all things to happen at a time, it is man's desire to enjoy / suffer all things at a moment.  Man makes things to happen following Nature. In nature everything moves, mutates, rotates dissipates and revives. Beckett's bald tree in Waiting for Godot oozes in the second Act; the possibility of regreening is immense. Santiago in his after failure reverie sees lions, pillows of death bed patients vibrate and things move on. If you ask why, the answer is the "sky is very very high" - which in childhood jocularity was quite a happy resolution to all incomprehensions. Man is a questioning animal. He never stops at anything. Never is content with any finality, be it death, a catastrophe or even Apocalypse. Look at the Pandemic Covid 19 which China gleefully exported and see how in Wuhan, the city of its origin, people gathered at a poolside in very large numbers, around 50k+ and cavorted in drunken orgy! Well, the show must go on - a cliche but so what!

 

In the history of the world, does not matter whether before or after a sense of history dawned on man, at no time man surrendered to the enforced revelations of anti-life. He fought his way to survive. The dinosaur failed and many other named and unnamed species failed but man has survived and has grown to be at 7.6 billion. The plague came and went, many other seen -unseen anti-life forces have come and gone: And now this Coronavirus! Well if China could celebrate the end of corona with unmasked joy why can't we? So many vaccine candidates are now competing for the Nobel, India too has her own Covaxin and three others. We will conquer. Why try to stop the process of life? Why try to stop all examinations?  It seems now there is a competition in India for the most defeatist coward prize which no one will award. But all states, political parties in the opposition and the examinees in India have raised their despairing hands in surrender to the forces against which they fight day and night.

 

The JEE and NEET tests will be held in September. The government of India mandated by the Supreme Court have announced the dates. Admit cards have been already received by 85 percent of candidates. But a clamour goes on for postponement. Appeals to the Prime Minister and Organizations concerned have been made by state governments and student bodies. Some motivated groups have started agitations: Why? Why try to stop the process? Why not brave the crisis and try to overcome the unforeseen impediment by driving into a new future? If University degree should be awarded without tests would the students be employable? If JEE and NEET should be postponed should the aspirants lose one year without batting an eyelid? If the present state of Covid and flood ravaged India is dangerous for a three hour examination what shall we do if the situation (god forbid) worsens? Why don't the opposition parties stay away from the sane judgement of the Supreme Court? And why do some people for their obscure intentions wish to stop the clock? Time will move even if the clock stops and those who do not move with time will be stuck at a moment of regret. Yes, the situation is bad but if the exams and tests are postponed or circumnavigated by political motivations the future may reveal our cowardice in more trying manners.

 

Crisis always brings out the bravest elements even in the most retarded minds. The indecisive people who fall prey to weak minded advice may not survive any calamity. And in such cases the decision ought to be of the individual. Why should a few weak willed candidates block the road for the heroic ones? Gresham's Law has no relevance in such cases. The bold must be allowed to move on. Life is short, losing one year in these times of uncertainty is unmanly. The pandemic has already taken its toll on human self belief. Unwanted cynicism and despair have already made many a young head heavy. If we willfully put more bricks on the walls of uncertainty the strength to jump over may suffer a time lag.

 

Man lives for his tomorrow working, dreaming, planning to better his 'today' which each tomorrow brings. If that today is wasted by yesterday's memories, life becomes memoryless, a gap in time without connectivity. My today is a preparation for tomorrow, if I postpone my tomorrow for a future date my personal history is holesome, not wholesome. We must remember- the Hero is one who willingly suffers the unslaughts of time and creates his opportunities out of the crisis which is not of his own making. But a man who does not have a heroic temper and never seizes the string before the murmur stops is a mere bystander. What the Supreme Court has decided is not a political decision. The SC has decided for the future of India, for the future youth of India. Those who by their unheroic temper display a fear of the morrow, should remember that they are setting wrong examples of Indian youth behaviour. Life must go forward. If some stumble and fall, so be it. For a few fearful persons the bold should not be sacrificed. Fare forward traveller- charaibati...