Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, April 28: When the whole world has gone topsy-turvy under the siege of the constantly percolating pandemic, consternating COVID-19, other games of luxuriant living are being played during lockdown times with the rich and powerful indulging in no longer adult games in the comfort of posh hotel interiors ostensibly locked down� from outside, that is.
The business bigwigs with political connections were not playing snakes and ladders games with female companions and free flowing booze. There are possibilities that they were discussing probable business strategies after the lifting of lockdown but police investigations have not revealed anything of such �childish� nature in non-domestic environs of spas and space for activities that big boys no longer play at night but at any time that currency, connection and clout can buy.
What happens when the comparatively common man like me and may be you depending on your secured status, breaks lockdown norms? The otherwise polite police baton swings, he is booked and released to make the court rounds after the �stay confined� law is lifted and journalists of my dirty genre howl with mockery and criticism for the immortal cartoonist Laxman�s common man breaking the law in the open. Break it in the closed room, ye common man with uncommon nonsense.
But, from the trail blazing event of sorts that has gripped the citizens� fancy over the past couple of days, it may safely be deduced that the uncommon man and his male and female ilk may play childhood games like �I spy� in adult surroundings by following lockdown norms regardless of the place and purpose of staying indoors far from the crowd of wives, children, grandchildren, dogs and a regiment of servants back home. What the hell, at least they remained �in hotel� ostensibly locked down from outside. So where did the breaking lockdown order come in from. Ah yes, it could have been applied if such influential inmates did not maintain the social distancing norm while doing this and that with the reportedly Kolkata imports as a part of expensive relief from the ennui of daily living. Man needs a break, moneyed or otherwise and these gentlemen (if they be so at all) too needed a break. And so they broke the rule of morality with the joys of being immoral. Even God forgives us our sins, so why won�t mortals?
Meanwhile, while five were sent to the less affluent Ghagidih �government guesthouse� yesterday, the remaining four of the Dirty Harry league along with another suspected to be linked somewhere to the �common cause� were packed off to join in the fun that takes place behind see-through jail bars. God have mercy on the soul of justice.
