Let’s defeat Corona with some humour - The Sunday Guardian Live

He would write either to suit editorial slants or to fulfil ideas tailor made for a perceived audience or to satisfy markets or to simply earn money, including the churning out of potboilers, many of which put him on the bestseller list for decades. He realised that this day he wanted to be as honest as possible, totally involved in what interested him alone; if published it was good, if not, he did not care and it did not matter. So each Sunday, over two decades he would write, “from daybreak to dusk, so briefly his own man, so briefly speaking of what he pleased and what pleased him.” He tried, every Sunday, like Defoe to be: “an honest man, full of sensitivity, racked by insecurities, determined one day to be a free and independent soul, to speak and write what is in his mind and heart without fear and compromise, to write in concert with truth or his own desires.” Though suffering from none of the compulsions of Defoe or Wallace, I wonder if I can follow some of this guidance every other Sunday. An elder on a charpoy under the village banyan tree was heard lamenting in prosperous rural Punjab in chaste Punjabi, that in the old days, when his emigrant grandson returned from Southall laden with gifts, the whole village would turn out and many would insist on going to the airport to receive him. A clever suitor, who had been berated by his fiancée for constantly delaying marriage, came up with an ingenious (possibly disingenuous!) Similarly, amidst escalating US Covid figures, Trump is rumoured to have cancelled budgetary allocations for the proposed US-Mexico wall, since Mexico is considering closing its borders to stop Americans bringing Corona to their country! Being an animal lover, one of my favourite visuals is of the big pet dog, standing on his hind legs with the house keys as he departs, admonishing his master cringing in a corner of the drawing room, thus: “Now you be a good boy and don’t go out. The Psychiatric Association’s warning is significant: “During Quarantine, it is normal to talk to your walls, plants and pots. Kindly contact us ONLY if they reply.” Or the risqué cartoon about a bulky man, pinned down by five doctors, poking him all over his body, while he screams: “For God’s sake, my name is NORONHA and starts with an N!” Or indeed, Gabbar Singh’s apt adaptation: “Jo Darr Gaya, Samjho woh Bach gaya.” Dr Abhishek Singhvi is a senior third term Member of Parliament; eminent jurist; former Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice; National Spokesperson, Congress; former Additional Solicitor General of India; author, writer and commentator.