Corona virus and the Principle of Peaceful Coexistence

ashokbhatia

 

Never did Bertie imagine seeing such a mess in his life,

Eagerly waiting for Drones to reopen so loneliness gets over;

Target practicing with darts is a skill which is getting rusted,

Bingo Little has time to sit together but cannot come over.

 

Back-slapping, hugging and shaking hands is a strict no-no,

Chatting over phone alone sounds a safer proposition;

Telegraph services to-and-fro nephews no longer work,

Aunts use video calls, trying to change their matrimonial disposition.

 

Roads are virtually free but a drive to Brighton is ruled out,

Peggy receives from Miss Tomlinson online grace;

Kid Clementina is missing the fun of putting sherbet in ink pots,

Prudence Baxter awaits her next egg and spoon race.

 

Aunt Dahlia is unable to invite nephews and nieces for meals,

Though Anatole is ready and willing to offer many a lavish spread;

Uncle Tom is delighted at Milady’s…

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Dear Jasper John, Happy Birthday!

ashokbhatia

Allow us to welcome you belatedly to this wonderful world on a special day,

When you turn one and fans in different continents are celebrating Plum;

For this is the day he decided to hand in his dinner pail,

Leaving a rich legacy of joy, should we ever become glum.

Unbeknown to you, you have brought happiness in many lives,

Not only to that of your parents and immediate family members;

But also to the lives of fans suffering from Corona-induced blues,

You brought hope to a sick planet and kept aglow joyful embers.

You dispelled our manner of death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness,

Keeping us safe indoors, devouring the works of the Master;

Reveling in the antics of those who lived almost a century back,

Keeping our sanity intact, building immunity, recovering faster.

In Plumsville, Death is surely not a dreaded phenomenon,

On the contrary, it confers wealth, castles and titles upon heirs;

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WHO ropes in Doctors and Paramedics from Plumsville to counter Corona Virus (Part 2 of 2)

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An Anonymous Doctor

Yet another medical practitioner who wishes to remain anonymous specializes in the realm of diet and nutrition. Like all good doctors, he advises those who have been disappointed in love to eat frugally. Fail to do this, and the result is as inevitable as the climax of a Greek tragedy. No man, however gifted his gastric juices, can go on indefinitely brooding over a lost love and sailing into the starchy foods simultaneously. If so, indigestion grips him soon enough, making him consult a physician like the one alluded to here.

His solutions to cure a soul in torment may sound drastic, but are invariably effective. He is apt to put one on a diet comprising nothing else but the juice of an orange.

He may advise the patient thus: ‘Precisely. Take your orange. Divide it into two equal parts. Squeeze on a squeezer. Pour into a…

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WHO ropes in Doctors and Paramedics from Plumsville to counter Corona Virus (Part 1 of 2)

ashokbhatia

The World Health Organisation, as the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations system, adheres to the UN values of integrity, professionalism and respect for diversity. It upholds such values as human rights, universality and equity established not only in WHO’s Constitution but also in its ethical standards.

In order to further strengthen the team of medical as well as paramedical professionals associated with us, we are hereby pleased to announce the immediate empanelment of the following experts drawn from Plumsville.

Sir Roderick Glossop

The high-priced loony doctor, with a bald head resembling the dome of St. Paul’s cathedral and two ferocious eyebrows which give his eyes a piercing look, has a pleasant baritone voice. He is expected to counsel all those who happen to be in quarantine to make creative use of their time while curbing their tendency to indulge in gambling, getting otherwise…

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‘The Corona Gladiators’: Proposal for a Plummy Movie

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Mr Schnellenhamer, the head of the Perfecto-Zizz-baum Corporation, the leading movie studio, is reported to be having an odd disagreeable feeling these days. Perhaps, it is caused by what Roget’s Thesaurus would describe as  agitation, fury, violent anger, wrath and similar emotions listed under the heading ‘Rage’, that too of an impotent kind.

Having struck a deal with Coronavirus Global Corp (CGC in short) to unleash upon the public a movie based on the current pandemic, he believes things to be moving a tad sluggishly. He is not able to gather enough goofy ideas to add a sparkle to the script. Discussions with his team of directors, script-writers, music composers, yes-persons, deputy yes-persons, junior yes-persons, nodders and trainee nodders have led to finalization of the basic outlines of the movie. But he feels much more could be done. CGC had mandated that the movie should get released before any…

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Roderick Spode presents his Annual Corona Report

At the 2^nd Annual General Meeting of the shareholders of the Global Corona Corporation (GCC), Roderick Spode, the Vice President (Operations) of the company, presented his Annual Report for the period from April 2020 to March 2021.

Here are some of the salient features of his report.

1. Due to the aggressive marketing policies followed by GCC, brand Covid has captured a major share of the market during the year under reference. As of now, close to 136 million people have suffered from this onslaught, while as many as 2.94 million have kicked the bucket. This has reduced the pressure on the limited resources of our planet.
2. If the world population is taken to be 7.8 billion, during the last year, GCC has touched a mere 0.02% of human beings. This shows the immense market potential which lies untapped for the products and services of GCC in the times to come. We have already trained an army of Red Shorts volunteering to help us expand our footprints across all the continents. The Honourable Frederick Threepwood, the famous marketing guru who is an expert at selling Donaldson’s Dog Joy biscuits, is already on our panel of distinguished advisors.
3. Enthused by our success so far and its future potential,  several mutants of the virus have also got launched in quick succession, keeping the Homo sapiens in a continuous state of fear and stress, twiddling their thumbs trying to figure out ways and means of countering the pandemic.
4. This has spurred a faster transformation to digital ways of handling transactions and led to a faster evolution of Industrial Revolution 4.0. Aunt Dahlia, who had always thrived on communicating by means of telegraphic means, is delighted at the simple life she lives now. Aunt Agatha now resorts to using video calls to give a piece of her mind to her errant nephew, Bertie Wooster.
5. Reduction of Global CO2 emissions, leading to a cleaner environment, promoting healthier flora and fauna, making Lord Emsworth a happy man.
6. Fault lines in managing economies have been exposed and the severe limitations of capitalism brought back in focus. Billionaires world over have improved their personal wealth by 54% during the period, while the poor are struggling to keep their body and souls together. Perhaps they followed what Ukridge preached that one accumulates only when one speculates. Those who believe in get-rich-quick schemes based on the stock market are also quickly learning to live with get-poor-quick outcomes instead. Office bearers of the Senior Conservative Club are appalled at the number of nouveau riche billionaires on their waiting list seeking membership.
7. Globally, politicos heading the so-called democratic countries have been successfully nudged to shed their sheep-wool clothing and instead reveal their wolf-like dictatorial ambitions. Truth has been revealed for the greater good, though human rights and journalistic freedoms have been trampled upon ruthlessly. Taking a leaf out of my own outrage when a prized silver cow creamer goes missing, opposition leaders and intellectuals have been beaten into a jelly. One salutes such leaders who have nerves of chilled steel and would not mind either getting hit by a potato in the eye at election rallies or having to kiss babies dribbling at their mouths at Bonny Baby contests.
8. Many countries have quickly learnt the art of covering up deficiencies in their economic growth and health infrastructure, keeping their statisticians busy perfecting their models of exponential smoothening. We live in an increasingly macho and muscle-flexing world, aided and abetted by our social media giants, devoid of noisy and argumentative democracies and led by leaders who decide policies based on window-dressed data submitted by Yes-persons around them. The prospects for an unbridled growth of GCC’s operations are indeed brighter.
9. Companies in several sectors and specialists of hues, sizes and shapes are laughing all the way to their banks: pharmaceuticals, personal hygiene, immunity boosters, physical fitness, motivators, loony doctors, yoga-gurus-turned-business-honchos, management experts, mentors, internet service providers and online streaming platforms launched by the likes of Perfecto-Zizzbaum Corporation, to name only a few.
10. A massive restructuring of jobs, highlighting the following needs of the businesses: (a) getting rid of the deadwood, (b) rapid re-skilling and (c) downsizing physical infrastructure while encouraging work-from-home. Mike Jackson has already helped organizations to go in for such changes.
11. In turn, husbands reluctant to learn such home making skills as cooking, cleaning dishes, changing diapers and doing the laundry are mending their ways. They are realizing the true meaning of chivalry, as recommended by Bertie Wooster. Homemakers, overwhelmed by the continuous presence of a dominating spouse and naughty children at home are queuing up for consultations with such loony doctors as Sir Roderick Glossop.   
12. Getting business owners and CEOs to hone their skills of Decision Making in Extreme Uncertainty, thereby making them hotter on their jobs. In turn, they enrich the syllabi of premier management institutes the world over. Rupert Psmith is now a much sought after consultant on the subject, even helping CEOs to respect values and ethics in their decision making, identify the core purpose of their businesses and thus making their organizations evolve into conscious ones.
13. Improving the resilience of the hoi polloi who had so far been unable to handle the harsh slings and arrows of Fate with equanimity and aplomb. Reginald Jeeves is conducting some useful workshops to attend to this segment of our operations.
14. Cupid is busy with his e-initiatives. Betrothed couples keep postponing a walk down the aisle, thereby keeping the tender flame of love alive. This has helped many of them to live through an extended period of intense romance, delaying the mummification of the corpse of love which often takes place after a marriage gets sanctified.
15. Highlighting the effectiveness of the following anti-depressants: quality time with loved ones, an abundance of the milk of human kindness, literature, fine arts, uplifting movies and humour as effective anti-depressants.
16. Promoting a healthier lifestyle amongst the couch potatoes by promoting Larsen Exercises, walking, cycling, partaking nourishment which would meet with the approval of Laura Pyke and feasting on tissue restoratives with such ingredients as turmeric, basil and the like.
17. Spiritual evolution of the human species by allowing them adequate time to connect with their inner selves and practice meditation as well as introspection.

The Annual General Meeting was followed by a world premiere of the award winning movie The Corona Gladiators, presented by Mr Schnellenhamer, the head of the Perfecto-Zizzbaum Corporation.

The premiere was followed by a lavish spread dished out by Anatole, God’s gift to our gastric juices.

On the occasion, all the shareholders also received gift coupons of Eulalie Soeurs, the premium brand of ladies’ lingerie. 

(The GCC grapevine would make us believe that Roderick Spode could soon be promoted to head the company as its Chief Executive Officer.)

(Illustration courtesy Mr Suvarna Sanyal)

(https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/the-corona-gladiators-proposal-for-a-plummy-movie

WHO ropes in Doctors and Paramedics from Plumsville to counter Corona Virus (Part 1 of 2)

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Jeeves Deals With Coronavirus: Guest Post by Eduardo Garcia

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As ever, Jeeves entered the room at the exact time. Neither too soon or too late, but just when I was about to begin to open my eyes, the honest man shimmered into view holding the salver with the invigorating cup of morning tea.

‘Good morning, Jeeves’, I said.

‘Good morning, sir’, said Jeeves.

‘What’s the weather like, outside?’

‘Extremely clement, sir. A balmy afternoon can be expected.’

‘Just the thing to encourage a chap to go for a constitutional around the park after breakfast, preparatory for a good lunch at Simpson’s, eh, Jeeves?’

‘Under usual circumstances, most definitely, sir.’

There was a clearly unhappy undertone in that. Almost imperceptible to the untrained ear, but definitely there. I decided to probe further into the matter.

‘Is anything the matter, Jeeves? Is the park being drilled for oil? Is the Serpentine being converted into some sort of dam to generate electricity…

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Of Lockdowns, P G Wodehouse and the Milk of Human Kindness

On the first anniversary of the strict lockdown imposed in India on this day, a year back!

ashokbhatia

The 24^th of March, 2020 dawned upon us as any other normal day. Denizens of India were going about their daily chores with as much zombiness as they could muster. Flowers were in bloom. Birds and bees were going about doing whatever they normally do. Trees were swaying in the gentle breeze coming in from the Bay of Bengal. In other words, God was in heaven and all was well with the world.

However, by 2030 hours in the evening, our world had turned upside down. The Indian government imposed a comprehensive lockdown across a country comprising 1.3 billion persons. The Prime Minister himself appeared on our TV screens and announced this decision. By the time he finished, a mere three and a half hours were remaining for the decision to take effect.

This sudden whammy left all of us twiddling our thumbs trying to figure out as to…

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Dear Jasper John, Happy Birthday!

 

Allow us to welcome you belatedly to this wonderful world on a special day,

When you turn one and fans in different continents are celebrating Plum;

For this is the day he decided to hand in his dinner pail,

Leaving a rich legacy of joy, should we ever become glum.

 

Unbeknown to you, you have brought happiness in many lives,

Not only to that of your parents and immediate family members;

But also to the lives of fans suffering from Corona-induced blues,

You brought hope to a sick planet and kept aglow joyful embers.

 

You dispelled our manner of death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness,

Keeping us safe indoors, devouring the works of the Master;

Reveling in the antics of those who lived almost a century back,

Keeping our sanity intact, building immunity, recovering faster.

 

In Plumsville, Death is surely not a dreaded phenomenon,

On the contrary, it confers wealth, castles and titles upon heirs;

Hiring Jeeves or Anatole, buying white jackets with brass buttons,

But not behaving like an American millionaire, putting on airs.

 

Your first year on this planet was a tough year indeed,

When many of us lost our clear vision of 20:20;

Plum’s works kept us afloat, giving us hope of a brighter future,

We have survived to the day and can read these lines aplenty.

 

A stern look from you and the virus would have gone into hiding,

Like a rhino retreating upon seeing a White hunter with a shotgun;

Enthused, we also took it head on, savouring our enforced isolation,

Relishing opportunities for introspection and having fun.

 

Like Bertie Wooster, you may approve of our chin up attitude,

Deploying nerves of chilled steel, surviving a sudden lockdown;

Oh, how we craved renting a cottage in the countryside,

Free of the fear of an Edwin the Scout who may burn it down.

 

Lest we may contract the dreaded virus,

We had to let go of Anatole, God’s gift to our gastric juices;

A Laura Pyke type diet regime we had to follow,

Partaking immunity boosting foods, sans any dietary excuses.

 

Many unopened books adorning our shelves we could go through,

Improving our intellect with tomes dished out by brainy coves;

Curled up in a corner with a tissue restorative by our side,

While affianced couples connected over internet, cooing like turtle doves.

 

Never in our lives did we imagine watching so many flicks,

Many inane, some average and few so very well made;

Homemakers turned creative and tried myriad recipes,

Prompting many of us to don a figurative skirt and chip in with due aid.

 

The pleasures of offline shopping sprees had to be given up,

Instead, online shopping alone saved the day for many of us;

With the giant wheels of commerce temporarily shut down,

A revival of the environment turned out to be a big plus.

 

Some rarely seen birds trooped in, giant butterflies fluttering,

The bees were active, flora and fauna flourished, sky was azure;

Flowers bloomed with gaiety, greener trees swayed gently,

Nature was bountiful; the air one breathed was pure.

 

Those in metros were severely hit, spinsters all alone and forlorn,

Musicals like ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ were sorely missing;

Engagements and nuptials had to be postponed, wedding plans trimmed,

Couples had a tougher time, unsure of even an act like kissing.

 

You have brought great joy into the lives of your parents,

As you grow, you shall surely return their nurturing ways;

They are bringing you up with lots of love and care,

Your innocent smiles and hugs brightening their days.

 

May your intellect be always one up on that of Jeeves,

Your investigative skills as sharp as those of Baxter the efficient;

In culinary skills, may you surpass Anatole, in smartness, Psmith,

A heart that bleeds for its pals may also be sufficient.

 

 

When it comes to heartily gorging on your daily nourishment,

The Empress could already learn a few things from you;

As to keeping the enthusiasm of a big sister under check,

Clarence could imbibe you, proving worthy in his ancestors’ view.

 

Your crawling skills would soon evolve into brisk walking ones,

If ever you get besotted with a Hollywood diva in your pre-teen days,

Like Thos, you may walk six miles to fetch the Sporting Times for Bertie,

Aspiring to win the Good Conduct competition, winning Greta Garbo’s praise.

 

You shall grow to be like a Hercules with nerves of chilled steel,

With abundant milk of human kindness coursing through your veins;

Following the Code of the Woosters with alacrity and aplomb,

Handling overbearing aunts, using Esmond Haddock’s tact and brains.

 

You chose to be born on a very special day,

Resurrecting the spirit of Plum, of whom your grandmother is a fan;

May your own life be full of light, sweetness and joy,

As long as a benevolent and humorous sun keeps cheering up man.

 

 

(Master John Jasper happens to be the grandson of Lucy Smink, a fan of P G Wodehouse Down Under. This impromptu composition is addressed to him. Permission of the family to publish it here is gratefully acknowledged.)

(Related Posts: 

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/lord-emsworth-and-the-girl-friend-a-visual-version

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/my-dear-clarence

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/the-gallery-of-rogue-kids-in-plumsville

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/when-masters-thos-bonzo-and-moon-rise-in-love)

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LEARNING FROM PG WODEHOUSE – how not to hate in the plural: Guest Post by Gavin Ashenden

‘Wodehouse is the perfect antidote to today’s misery’, says Gavin Ashenden in one of his posts wherein he  highlights the role played by negative news and contrasts it with the sublime joy dished out by Plum in his narratives. The post is highly relevant in today’s pandemic-ridden era when even the credibility of our media channels, social or traditional, is at a low ebb. I personally know of at least two persons who passed away during the 2020 spate of lockdowns, primarily because of an overdose of negative news.

Here is his post of 2017 vintage, brought to the attention of Plum fans by Morten Arnesen recently.

I’m not sure that too much news is very good for you.

A constant diet of misery chosen by some random news editor gets poured into our ears by a radio, or batters our eyes and heart on the TV. Bad news always grabs our attention; good news, not so much.

The hiatus of horror trumps the tedium of the tepid. After a while, we get used to the non-stop human misery. We develop a thicker skin, toughened against other people’s suffering.

Twenty-four-hour news cycles have only made it worse. We need antidotes to this one-sided misery fest. One of mine is P G Wodehouse. Some people met him for the first time on TV, through Jeeves and Wooster. I slip into his world of rampant aunts and the magic of his mix of metaphors with a sigh of relief.
Once heard, who can ever forget the image: ‘The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say “When!”’

If you have wilted under the constant curse of ‘I told you so’ from your well-informed beloved, you recognise the affliction of Mavis at once: ‘There are girls, few perhaps but to be found if one searches carefully, who when their advice is ignored and disaster ensues, do not say “I told you so”. Mavis was not of their number.’

And perhaps my perpetual concise favourite: ‘I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.’

Wodehouse didn’t come by his plots or his phrases easily. It was hard perfectionist graft. He would take the pages of the day and pin them on the wall opposite him. The best pages would get fixed higher up the wall, and the weaker ones lower down. Then he would take the lowest and work on it to improve it and pin it up higher… and go to the next lowest and so on…
Anyone who has struggled with relatives in general and aunts in particular, will enjoy: ‘It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.’

He married an American chorus girl and wrote the lyrics for Hollywood and Broadway shows as well as crafting the most beautiful English novels that enfolded you into a world that never had been, but you longed to be part of; a world of innocence and charm, where malice was restrained, brains were optional and friendship always triumphed.

His own world grew more complex in 1939. Living in Le Touquet in northern France with a community of well-bred and well-heeled expats, he failed to foresee the speed of the German advance. He wasn’t alone in this. Most of the British High Command made the same misjudgment, but unlike him, they weren’t arrested.

He was. He found himself shoved into a cattle truck and after three prisons ended up in a converted mental asylum near the Polish border.

Throughout his time in Tost, he sent postcards to his US literary agent asking for $5 to be sent to various people in Canada, mentioning his name. These were the families of Canadian prisoners of war, and the news from Wodehouse was the first indication that their sons were alive and well. He risked severe punishment for the communication, but with careful turns of phrase managed to evade the German censor.

Having turned 60, he was released and sent to Berlin where he was asked to broadcast to the US. The Germans hoped they had a propaganda success on their hands, but Wodehouse used the five broadcasts to describe the horrors of internment using laconic understatement, heavy irony and razor wit.

But the British public, freaked out by the radio broadcasts of a real traitor, Lord Haw-Haw, couldn’t cope. They turned to hate. Particularly dense MPs demanded that if he returned he be tried for treason. He was interviewed and exonerated by MI5 in Paris in 1944. He fled to America at the end of the war. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the British public got over their fit of clumsy moral hysterics, but they had forgotten rather than forgiven.

When asked if he didn’t hate the Nazis, one more question designed to flush out the traitor in him, he replied that he found it impossible to ‘hate in the plural’.

Hating has become a political as well as a personal problem recently. When even the state has taken charge over mapping our minds to flush out our ‘hate crime’ and other politicised moral misdemeanours, there is something to be said in taking refuge in the simple nostalgia of innocence in his novels.Laughter lifts a fallen world. We can learn, too, from his blank refusal to hate class, gender or race.

Both the news and the world would be a better and easier place, if like Wodehouse, we absolutely refused to ‘hate in the plural’.

(This article of Gavin Ashenden had earlier appeared in the Jersey Evening Post: https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2017/08/17/comment-wodehouse-is-the-perfect-antidote-to-todays-misery)

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