It’s all over the news and its flying! Open the papers and its there, switch on the tv and its there, read a blog and its there too! It is surely getting its fair share of attention but there is not much we have to fear- atleast not when we are at home. I think that’s the best place to be under these circumstances. And yes! I welcome the one week ban in schools and colleges.
People are wary of each other and everyone is suspicious. But who can blame them? The nature of this disease builds up the fear in people. A beeline for masks was seen at all chemists and selling them at double the market price was definitely not welcome. Spirit of Mumbai- I say! Taking advantage of people in times of need and desperation.
So many deaths were reported but only if the news reporters would have highlighted that the patients were victims of various diseases which is why they eventually succumbed to swine flu, not everyone would have lined up at the hospitals for a test. Hospitals- ironically the only place where the percentage of catching the virus is higher than any other area!
Only if our government could have taken enough measures for prevention and would have curbed the scares, we could have passes this phase just as easily as we did SARS. I bet nobody even remembers what SARS even stands for! Anyway, I am grateful that this hasn’t become a full fledged pandemic as WHO probably predicted. It was rated 6 on a scale of 1 to 6, meaning that this was probably the deadliest airborne virus WHO probably saw in its history.
This post wasn’t written with the intention to scare people further but with the intention to bid the virus, adieu, because lets face it- Mumbai doesn’t have time for anything to stop it, not even a virus that can kill almost all its inhabitants! |
I read Shailendra Jha’s Press 9 for a Crime with my late-night lamp on; it’s a razor-sharp, humane thriller set between East Delhi and scam hubs in Southeast Asia . Fast, funny, and disturbingly real, it follows Aseem’s risky rescue of his missing brother. This review analyses theme, craft, character work and why the book both alarms and entertains and lingers. Why did this book grab me at once? Have you ever opened a book at midnight because the world outside felt suddenly less interesting than the danger on the page? That was me with Press 9 for a Crime . As someone who reads a lot of thrillers, believable stakes, and characters I care about. Jha gives me both within the first ten pages. The opening scenes place you in a cramped East Delhi neighbourhood and you instantly feel the hum of small-town hopes: the son who promises escape through a “job in Bangkok”, the ledger of family debts, the refrigerator light in a kitchen where dreams are rationed. Jha’s background in journa...
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