Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, March 24: It is OK to use the term �Men will be Men� in matters of ads or references just for the heck of it. But at times, men should not always be men who behave like truant children shying away from school guidelines.
This is in reference to men oblivious to the government and administrative cautions of remaining indoors to evade corona infliction. The administration has ensured that all essential requisites like health care, food grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, cooking gas, vehicular fuel, sanitation services, water and power supply are available to the citizens. So, what is the crowding and rushing all about?
The police and administration are trying their best to keep people safe from the lurking cloud of killer corona. But they are, unfortunately, not omnipresent entities who can be all over the place at all the time. Yet they are performing a Herculean job of trying to train a human mass that, as per the Creator�s plan, does not require training on matters they are supposed to be well acquainted with � for instance, safety. In the case of COVID � 19 situation, a burnt child may not have time enough to dread the fire.
Today too, on the second day of the statewide Lockdown, people were rushing around, crowding market places to make purchases of essential items in a hoarder like manner. They paid scant respect to caution. Maintaining social distance was pooh-poohed by these men as they jostled to fill their bags with vegetables and food grains. The rush at Dhatkidih and Mango market places and roads made the saner of the species of man regret at being recognized as a higher animal.
This scribe moved around the Sakchi and Baradwari vegetable markets where stocks were sufficient although priced on the higher side, with barely a few customers around, picking at leisure the items of their needs. Natwar, a Kasidih resident who was purchasing potatoes, onions and other vegetables, observed, �Summer is here. The afternoon sun is keeping people indoors. But a bit of sun is bargain enough to avoid crowds and getting infected (by Coronavirus). I deliberately avoided the morning rush. May be, the crowds will return after sunset.�
At least, there was one man who was a man. But that brings to the mind another social poser: why do shops that do not stock essential commodities, open up in the first place? To make hay while the sun shines? Tobacco products are selling at a premium. Other shops dealing in stationery products, toys, utensils, plastic and molded goods were seen open in Parsudih, Mango, Dhatkidih and Jugsalai. At places where the police arrived, these shopkeepers were scolded and warned before they unwillingly downed their shutters.
It is all too easy to blame the men in khaki and of course, the officials of the district administration. But is it not the responsibility of citizens (men included) to lend a cooperative hand and abide by the cautions given out for their own good? Why subscribe to crowding and shops not selling necessities? Are people not responsible enough to fend for their own health? Why risk the lives of others by becoming a mobile, human Coronavirus? Are the scenes and people�s senses of responsibility as displayed over these two days, not cases and causes enough to clamp curfew for forced discipline? In such a case, the conscience poser is, who is to blame?