Covid-19 is raising its head again. As it is, the communal virus has been horrifying, wrecking lives and livelihoods, and if it gets compounded by the coronavirus then consequences would be disastrous
By the time you’d get to read this column, the new year would have just about unfolded. Mixed emotions for me. Less of enthusiasm and more of apprehensions. For one, the coronavirus scare seems getting back into our daily lives. Perhaps, it could be denting the free flow of movement and the connected bandobast. It wouldn’t be amiss to state that in case the virus strikes, once again that is, it will be nothing short of hell. The very survival would get difficult, financially and emotionally. As it is, the communal virus has been horrifying, wrecking lives and livelihoods, and if it gets compounded by the coronavirus then one can imagine what disasters would unfold.
As of now today, the only little ray of hazy hope is the way the masses are moving towards the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Hundreds and thousands of our fellow citizens are joining in that long march. This indicates that the common man wants to live amidst a secure and safe environment. No more communal hatred, no more divisive politics!
The man who was all for yatras
Last fortnight on 12 December, on Mulk Raj Anand’s birthday (he was born on 12 December 1905 in Peshawar), I sat wondering how he wrote and continued writing no matter the emotional challenges coming his way. Also, the fact that he was all for undertaking yatras.
Each time I had interviewed Mulk what came across rather too strongly was the stark fact that for him writing was a form of therapy, to lessen the emotional pain and turmoil. “Writing is a therapy for me …to this day I must write every day. During 1927 when I had suffered the first nervous breakdown, my meeting with Sigmund Freud in Vienna and five sittings with him helped to a considerable extent. But later, the subsequent two nervous breakdowns were cured only through writings. I wrote a novel each time to recover my fragile nerves …Wrote the novel – Across The Black Waters – when my friend, activist Gertrude Mitchell, was killed by the Nazis in 1936.”
Mulk had detailed, “In my personal life I have loved several women and was left shattered when they died. In fact, each nervous breakdown took off with that loss. The first breakdown came with the news of the first woman I ‘d fallen in love with, Irene, who was an Irish and was involved with the Irish national movement, was killed in 1927 …Two more nervous breakdowns followed…I’ve suffered not just in relationships but also on the marriage front .My first marriage with Kathleen Van Gelder had failed. The second marriage to Anel D’ Silva couldn’t really take off because at the last minute she changed her mind. I had then married dancer Shireen Vajifdar.”
