Job Kozhamthadam

As I was watching with dismay the formidable havoc Covid-19 has been wreaking worldwide, the nursery rhyme I memorized during my early school days flashed across my memory lane: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”Who this Humpty Dumpty was, and what exactly happened to him are unimportant. The fundamental message is clear – the pathetic helplessness of the most powerful king with all his resources to put the shattered Humpty back to normalcy. The sad and progressively deteriorating Coronavirus predicament seems to have created a similar situation for us humans. Brilliant science, backed by amazing technology, has almost touched its peak now. The physical science is getting ready to probe into the mystery world of dark matter and dark energy, hopefully with the help of gravitational-wave technology. The Chinese just 3 years ago achieved the hitherto unmatched feat of teleporting photons to a distance of 1,400 Kilometres, seemingly defying Einstein’s Relativity Theory. In the biological world, assisted by breakthroughs in the field of genetics, the same Chinese scientists have succeeded in coming up with genome-edited human babies with HIV-resistant capabilities. In the world of neurology, scientists are ready to produce robots and humanoids that are claimed to be capable not only of equalling humans but even outsmarting them. Space science seems to have reached a stage where space-travel can become an everyday affair. In fact, there have been reports that the scientific maverick Elon Musk has already started taking bookings for interplanetary trips. So goes the long book of the success-story of human-made science. It seems that science is all set to write the last chapter of the success story of its triumph over Nature. Precisely then ushers in the shocker, the puny little Coronavirus-2 with its scary Covid-19 just to remind human arrogance that Nature too is capable of playing a few “dirty tricks” on humans.

Coronavirus-2 or simply Coronavirus is the short form of SARS-Cov-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronovirus-2) and the disease it causes is Covid-19.Biologically speaking, viruses are at the bottom of the ladder of living beings. In fact, scholars point out that they may be placed in the grey area between living and non-living beings. Being a parasite, strictly speaking they do not have an existence of their own. They need to have a host to survive and reproduce themselves. They attach themselves to the host living cells, and use the genetic materials of these to reproduce themselves. When coming to their size, they are smaller than bacteria which are single-celled beings. Scholars point out that we can place about 500,000 viruses side by side within a centimetre of length. Despite all this low status and limited capabilities, they can be deadly on us humans. They are infectious, and they target successfully the most vital and vulnerable part of the human body – the respiratory system. In fact, today the mighty, space-ready humans are helplessly shivering before this Coronavirus! Tens of thousands have already died, and many more are waiting in the death-row!The most ominous statement came from Dr Anthony Fauci, top infectious disease expert of USA, just on 30th March 2020: “Looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100 and 200,000 (deaths).” Of course, the range he gives is vast; let us hope and pray that the reality will not be so bad. As of 1st April 2020, the frightening data is: 859,032 cases tested positive, 42,322 deaths and 178,101 recoveries. It may be noted that the recoveries I have been able to study were mostly milder cases of comparatively healthy persons with no serious medical complications. What about those lucky not to be infected yet? They too have to bear the brunt of it all. The whole world is held in ransom, having become literally a global prison! I wonder whether the world had such an experience even at the peak of World War II! These tiny little mischief-makers , who do not own a home of their own, who cannot earn their own daily bread, have really played havoc with us mighty humans. With all our ultra-modern telescopes that can peer into almost 13 billion years in the past, with all our super-specialized microscopes which can detect the tiniest of the tiniest, we humans have been cornered by this corona, at least for the time being. Surely, I am confident that an effective vaccine is on its way, but seems to a rather long way – experts today give 12-18 months for it to reach us. I hope and pray that it will not take that long! But by the time that happens more than enough damage will have been done not only to human lives, but also to human pride and independence!

What are the takeaways? A few quickies as they flash across my mind. We live in a webbed world through and through – we are all linked together intrinsically and intricately. In such a world everyone matters – even the tiniest, faceless, address-less Corona! No one can be taken for granted, no one can be ignored. The fragility of humans is another lesson we learn in this context. With all our laudable and admirable achievements, we are fragile. A small misstep can be fatal. Experts tell us that Corona were no new comers into our world. They cohabited with bats for ages. But last year they decided to pay an unfriendly visit to humans – it was a very costly visit! We did not have the power to stop the visitor. Human limitedness is another message of this experience. We have achieved a lot, particularly in science and technology. Yet, we are nowhere close to writing the last chapter. We have miles and miles to go – that is the lesson I learn from my long study of almost 450 years of the triumphant march of science. It is pretty clear that Nature cannot be outsmarted by us humans. For Richard Dawkins God is an illusion; for Stephen Hawking God is the unnecessary and unwanted creation of the unenlightened. But the “Ancient One” of Albert Einstein refuses to go away, refuses to hand over all the secrets to humans, and humans time and again find themselves helpless to change this state of affairs. Our fate is not much different from the ancient Humpty Dumpty! Periodically, without fail comes the reminder:Humans are creatures of the Creator, and will remain so. Humans can never become co-equals with the Creator. But through their capabilities and hard work they can become collaborators with the Creator, and contribute towards the well being of humanity.