INDIA'S CORONAVIRUS CRISIS: A DELAYED PERFECT STORM FINALLY COME.

ICHEOKU says it was long overdue as every logical person knows that the right conditions exist in India to make it a serious coronavirus hotbed. So, it was not necessarily a question of whether it would happen, but when it would happen and it has now happened. It was a known, easily anticipatable inevitability which finally arrived and like a Santa Anna wildfire is causing wanton havoc among the Indian population. 

So, the two real issues which need to be forensically examined are what took the coronavirus so long in reaching crisis level in India and why the authorities in India were not prepared enough in anticipation of the crisis. India is a perfect Petri dish for COViD-19 disaster but has had a lucky escape so far until now. ICHEOKU says is even surprised that the dreadful Chinese contagion export to the world has not claimed many more lives in India so far, at least one million lives all things considered; which is another indicator that they have been lucky thus far. Also their reputed medical expertise might have helped them too. But from all indications, every condition necessary was just about right in India for coronavirus to wreck great havoc there. 

Even the United States of America with its superior standards in nearly everything was devastated by the coronavirus and you wonder why India is dirtier, overcrowded, unhygienic and with heavily polluted air got spared until now. Coronavirus is a respiratory disease and the environment is a factor affecting respiratory conditions, yet India was got much luckier break than America in the toll exacted by the dreadful Chinese Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. So, many people were thankfully surprised that the coronavirus did not provide the lighting fuse of an already combustible situation which is present in India as it was bound to thrive in such an environment.

After watching "Slum Dog Millionaire" thirteen years ago, only to find out later that the movie was not staged on a set, but a point and shoot real life situation of the slums of Mumbai, ICHEOKU too additional steps to confirm the acuity of the depicted scenes. The findings confirmed that the poverty rate and inhospitable and inhabitable environment in which some millions of Indians live was not overly exaggerated in the movie. ICHEOKU reached out to some Indian friends, one Sikh, one Hindu and one Dalit to get their different perspectives on the real living conditions in India cross-referenced to the movie. The Dalit confirmed it while the Sikh and Hindu protested it as a racist hit piece on India. 

ICHEOKU very recently revisited the issue, in an attempt to understand the real life living situation in India really looks like by watching documentaries on India, including traveling blogs on Youtube of actual people who showcased the streets and neighborhoods of India while traveling in India. The last Youtube video which ICHEOKU watched on this subject was a blog by one fella from Kyrgyzstan who did a travel blog on Varanasi, the religious capital of India. It left a  riveting impression concerning the debilitating poverty and living conditions in which some people actually lives in some places in India. Then add the monkeys and cows freely mixing with human beings environment and the potpourri is complete. 

However, the poverty rate and abject living conditions of over 300 million Indians is not the subject of this article. The stray is to highlight it and give some necessary background on why coronavirus eventually found a proven grounds in India and presently causing the devastation being witnessed. If America with much higher standards of living, better medical services, sanitation as well as better quality of breathable air could suffer the heavy toll of over 500,000 lost lives, it is still a miracle and a feat that India's losses so far is still nothing close to what America has recorded. It is either they are lucky or their population is very resilient; except of course their Ganga River protected them from the scourge all these while. 

But whatever it was that protected them until now, the government must now take the mantle and do their part. The government must also find an acceptable way to try and encourage their population to take it easy on child bearing as a way of controlling their population or at least bring it down to much manageable numbers below one billion people. Indian population is astronomically too high, the reason all the effort being made by their government and rich and wealthy people to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions in India have not panned out as anticipated or reflected significantly. 

Also, Indians must try and modernize their manner of cadaver disposition by encouraging incinerators and crematoriums as recent videos out of their wood burning of dead bodies is not reflective of modernity. Moreso, the increased numbers of dead bodies as a result of the coronavirus has heightened the task of finding enough woods and spaces to dispose the dead bodies and all the smoke are going into the environment and being breath in by Indians. So, yes, it is their religion tinged, but even religion should be able to make necessary accommodations for some evolving fine-tuning, especially in matters concerning air quality and environmental pollution.

ICHEOKU says the land that gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, the ebullient and much beloved Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as doyens of Silicon Valley deserves better and should do better. India was a perfect storm of coronavirus which was merely late in arrival but not that nobody had expected it. So, those in authority in Delhi should have anticipated this day to come and made necessary preparations to meet the challenge. But unfortunately, it seems that they slept on their oars, thinking that they had dodged the bullet, only for their country men and women to be facing their worst coronavirus nightmare presently. They must now do the needful and face it squarely like any other challenge which they have faced as one united determined and indefatigable nation and kick the Chinese gift to the world back into the sewers where it belong. 

ICHEOKU says is optimistic that Prime Minister Narendra Modi shall rise to the occasion and help help his people get through this crushing phase of the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging his country. He is capable and competent; and being much loved by his people, it will be very easy for him to mobilize them into action to do the necessary things required to tame the pandemic. ICHEOKU is a fan and alongside millions of his other admirers all over the world, are praying for India to quickly get over their present coronavirus hurricane. All the best to the wonderful people of India and may the coronavirus be wrestled down as quickly as possible. America had it worse, but luckily for them, the virus has now been largely contained and life is beginning to return to normal and so will India. ICHEOKU says Namaskar to all the Indians out there!