Year 2020 - the Year of the Coronavirus, will be a fertile one for conspiracy theories - a spy thriller of wheredunit and whydunit, rather than the classic whodunit - which seems already sorted as far as the novel coronavirus goes
People ride bicycles on a street in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on September 2, as the city continues its return to normality after being ground zero for the COVID-19 coronavirus earlier this year. Pic/AFP
We all love conspiracy theories. Having grown up on fables, fiction and Dr Faustus - the genius who sold his soul to the devil to acquire more knowledge - we gladly embrace conspiracy theories in a tight hug. This is if we have not already invented one, or many.
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Year 2020 - the Year of the Coronavirus, will be a fertile one for conspiracy theories - a spy thriller of wheredunit and whydunit, rather than the classic whodunit - which seems already sorted as far as the novel coronavirus goes.
With the Covid-19 virus still running loose and creating clones, mutants and variants, millions of daily prayers and wishes have died natural deaths. In barely nine short months - the time it takes for a new loving, gurgling life to take form - one million people are already dead, snatched away from their loved ones. Another tens of thousands will die and millions of others live in daily fear of dying by Covid.
The long march of the virus from Wuhan - whether the wet markets or the military lab - is unending and unnerving. Nobody knows for sure, except the Chinese, how the virus managed to raise its ghastly head. The Chinese blame their wet markets, where live and dead animals are together sold for food, while the Americans and many others believe it was the military lab from where the teeny-weeny virus made good its escape.
From the virus' point of view, it is no fun living in a test tube when you can travel around the world for free and settle down in glorious landscapes. Or, what is the point in living at the wet markets with bats - dead or alive - when you can find millions of beautiful bodies to thrive on and proliferate.
All of this makes for a wonderful science thriller but for the fact that billions of people are living and dying this nightmarish science thriller every day of their lives.
The spread of the coronavirus has been so efficient and deadly that it will divide global history into two - the pre-Covid world and the post-Covid world. Exactly as it happened in Odisha, India, during the 1999 super cyclone which cleaved the state's history and people's memories into two - pre and post-super cyclone. What the super cyclone did for Odisha, the coronavirus has done for the world - inflicting unending pain over eight billion people in unprecedented ways.
There are optimists also. To every dark night, there is a beautiful morning also. Many feel that a post-Covid world, once we come out of the pain and misery - might turn out to be a better world. Environment and natural eco-systems have already improved. Maybe the coronavirus was a lesson for humanity to be more humane. However, this gushing joy of the environmentalists was short lived - it lasted as long as the lockdowns did. Now that the lockdowns are over, the pollution is creeping back.
Only time will tell the direction the post-Covid world will take.
For the moment it is enough that the ones who are alive continue to live, work and play. While doing so, they also make the world a better and brighter place for those who are struggling with the infection.
The world will remember and also remind people that the virus came from Wuhan, whatever the Chinese Communist Party says and howsoever the naysayers and China apologists defend it. Even the menacing Wolf Warriors cannot tide over the crime against humanity that China has unleashed wittingly or unwittingly, willingly or unwillingly.
The conspiracy theories will thrive and proliferate the same way as the virus expanded itself from Wuhan to shroud the world. China has to come clean and share what actually happened at the wet market, or the military lab.
After all this misery, the world is eagerly waiting for the Covid truth but not Chinese propaganda. The long march of the virus from Wuhan has to be stopped before it gobbles up another million.
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