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Just in Jest | Comrades and tragedies

Blood in his tragedies could still turn the river Avon red and all the perfumes of Arabia will not be enough to sweeten its waters again.

Be it the 'to be, or not to be' Hamletian hamartia, the 'sinned against than sinning' King Lear, the 'fair is foul, foul is fair' Macbeth or the 'Et tu, Brute' Julius Caesar, the Bard of Avon has always been the King of tragedies.

A few centuries later and several seas away from Avon, a 'Red' government in Kerala has also been nurturing a strange affair with tragedies for the past seven years. It even won an election pitching itself as a 'Super Hero' in the times of tragedies.

It all began with a 'tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning' in 2017, almost 18 months after the Left government took charge in 'God's own country'. A Shakespearean Tempest-like cyclone, named Ockhi (eye) by Bangladesh, ripped through the southern tip of the state, leaving a trail of destruction and distress.

Almost new in the saddle, the government swung into action and the fast rescue and relief operations won accolades from all quarters.

Tragedy struck again in 2018 when the regime was about to celebrate the second anniversary of its coronation. This time it came in the form of a bat in a well in Kozhikode district. (Even the Bard was not kind to the echolocation small mammal as he always linked it to witchcraft.)

The government immediately declared a war on the bat-borne Nipah virus and won it with flying colours. This victory brought in global recognition for the state and its people.

Months after this, calamities rained on the state with a deluge in Biblical scale drowning houses across districts in 2018, reminding people of the famous line: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods..."

A small device called smartphone played the role of Noah's Ark and Good Samaritans were aplenty to take the sinking land to safety this time. By now, laurels had become a habit for the government.

Two years on, the mother of all pandemics hit the world in 2020. The state rose to the occasion and showed the world how to fight the virus and tame it. The daily sunset television appearances of the government's head and his reassuring words proved to be an elixir of life for the people.

The 'Corona kits' turned out to be a cornucopia of food and beverages for the masses. For the government, a flood of international honours followed.

At the end of over a year of life behind 'masks', came elections. By then, the ruling comrades had become 'saviours' and their leader a 'Super Hero'.

Victory was just a formality for them.

The second innings of the ruling brigade began with a tragedy for the old guards except the Super Hero. All of them lost their jobs.

With the new faces and new vigour, the script for the second term brought in a few twists to the plot. The narrative of tragedy made way for a series of comedy of errors (biryani vessels, Magsaysay award, Life Mission, AI cameras...)

Still, the regime's tryst with tragedies continued. An overcrowded boat capsized at Tanur in Malappuram district on May 7, killing 22 people.

This accident occurred when the ruling front was facing some real heat from the Opposition and media for the now-infamous camera scam, which threatened to expose the underbelly of corruption in the government.

Minutes after the boat tragedy, the media shifted its cameras to Tanur for three days, giving the government's AI cameras an intelligent burial. That was some providential escape for a government on its second anniversary.

Maybe, this is also a lesson for the media not to allow a flood of tears to blur or drown its own vision.

Nota bene: With the 2024 Lok Sabha polls round the corner, will comrades bank on tragedies again or the result itself will be their tragedy?