POVID-21

Sanjeev Upreti

The world was initially beset by COVID-19 pandemic, and then later, by POVID-21. Where and when did the latter begin to cause its havoc is still a matter of mystery. In pandemics like COVID-19, as in similar ones in the past, poor people died the most. POVID-21, unlike COVID-19, afflicted the rich, and turned their lives into living nightmare all over the globe. 

This does not mean that all rich folks infected by POVID-21 lost their lives. However when great businessmen infected with POVID-21, started going bankruptand began taking to the streets–from London to Sydney, San Francisco, Delhi and Tokyo–this latter pandemic precipitated an unimagined global crisis. The super rich, who until recently moved around the smooth streets of Manhattan in their limousines, dressed in gorgeous Armani suits and ties, were seen squatting along the sides of the same streets, holding placardssaying ‘Homeless’, and holding their hats up-side in order to beg. When such pictures went viral on social media, people naturally started wondering what may happen if this latest pandemicwere to spread all over the world. 

Corona had been contained with great difficulty, after successful invention of COVID-19 vaccine. People,forced to stay locked inside their homes, had finally begun to come out to the streets fearlessly. Seminars had resumed again in five star hotels. Once again, bottles of red and white wine, and those of red and black label whiskies, had begun to pop open in grand parties. Once again the well off were beginning to make plans for European and Australian vacations. But even as the fear of COVID-19 was just beginning to evaporate, the world was struck by POVID-21, putting an end to dances, music, parties, gatherings, tours and vacations.Once again, the world was gripped by terror. 

Unbelievable pictures started getting viral via Twitter and Facebook. They showed Delhi-based billionaires covering their faces with shawls as they scampered down the street from Chandani Chowk towards Pahadganj; rich Londoners in shorts were seen gawking outside the subway stations with forlorn looks.After billionaires in Tokyo and San Francisco, who had turned proletariats following the onset of the latest pandemic, started taking their own lives, the terror unleashed by POVID-21 shook the entire world.  

Though the scientists were working tirelessly around the clock to discover the virus or bacteria causing POVID -21, they were not able to resolve the mystery. When the scientist failed to invent a remedy, the sociologists came forward.  

Was POVID-21 an economic or social problem, instead of being a physical one? Otherwise, why was it infecting only the wealthy ones?  

World Bank and the International Monetary Fund invested billions to fund research on POVID 21. This, understandably, was prompted by the dire need to save global economy. Despite all this, however, the cure to the latest pandemic was not anywhere in sight. 

Everyone had thought that POVID vaccine would either be invented in US, or else in China or Germany. Some academicians at Tribhuvan University, too, were trying to find out sociological causes of the pandemic. Similar efforts were going around the world: from Sweden to Norway, and from Brazil to Canada. But contrary to everyone’s expectation, the first credible sociological explanation concerning POVID-21 came fromNigeria. In a press conference organized in Abuja, renowned Nigerian sociologist Dr. Amandi said, “POVID-21 is a disease that spreads from the poor to the rich.” Through innumerable television and the Youtube channels, Dr. Amandi’s words spread to millions of homes all over the world. 

“For this reason, it can also be called the pandemic of poverty,” Thus spoke DrAmandi at Abuja, “Unlike Corona or SARS, it does not transmit through cough or touch; nor is Povid transmitted by any virus or bacteria. It’s a disease that spreads through eyesight. As soon as the rich lay their eyes on the poor, the pandemic of poverty transmits from the poor to the rich …richer a person, greater the probability of him or her contracting the disease! In other words, billionaires get infected as soon as they see the poor. Millionaires, too,  are prone to infection, but the rate and intensity of the disease decreases in proportion to the reduction of the wealth.”

In the days following the first outbreaks of the pandemic, leaders of the civilized nations delivered fierce speeches, ruling out the probability of POVID-21 infections in their countries. According to these leaders, unlike in Asian and African nations, their countries did not have poor peoples, and hence the possibility of being infected by the pandemic of poverty was zero. But within a very few days of the outbreak, it became clear that places such as Queens in New York, just like Barking and Dagenham in the UK, were homes to a large numbers of poor whites, in addition to poor Asian and African emigrants. This made it clear that so-called developed countries were not immune to the outbreak of the new pandemic. 

But then how to contain the global spread of Povid-21? 

National governments in developed world started advising their well-off citizens to stay shut inside their homes, and refrain from laying their eyes on the poor. But in the meantime, new information became public: the rich did not need to see the poor directly in order to contract POVID. Even if they saw pictures of the poor, rendered skeletal by famine, on the television or by social media, there was a chance that they might catch the disease. 

Billionaires, all over the world, stopped watching television. They also stopped using Twitter and Facebook. This was but natural, as The World Health Organization had issued an official statement, saying that seeing a single poor person (or his or her photo) would be enough to make the viewer infected. 

In the meantime, an optical company in France inventedan amazing eyeglass. On wearing those glasses, the black-and-white world outside would appear colored; and those rendered bone-and-skin by hunger would appear robust, tall and healthy. The workers would appear inthe guise of capitalists, while thin, ragged beggars would look like powerful wrestlers. The promo of the glass company claimed that the use of these amazing, miraculousglasses would eliminate poverty, reduce the impact of pandemic, and bring back sanity and normalcy to the world once again. 

Since South Asian counties like Nepal, India and Bangladesh are homes to millions of poor people, the import of these glasses was quite high in these countries. Even if the glasses failed to eliminate poverty, they wouldat least help make it invisible. But to everyone’s dismay, sometreacherous journalists started writing indiscriminately against miraculous glasses.Following the journalistic reports, governments had to face vehement criticism from the general public. Many journalists were nabbed and put in custody, and the governments started promulgating newer ordinances every day to punish the offenders. 

Though the cause of the new pandemic was discovered, its remedy still remained a far cry. Since every country had poor citizens, finding a remedy for POVID-21 without eradicating poverty, was an impossible task. While most of the sociologists, political thinkers andfinancial experts were aware of this essential fact, it was clear that the task of eradicating poverty was not easy. This is because one billion people, out of the total of seven billion living onthe planet, were extremely poor slum dwellers. Under such impossible circumstances, how could anyone invent a vaccine that would completely eradicate poverty from the face of earth? 

Discussions and debates raged throughout the world concerning the crisis. Some experts suggested that all poor people should be rounded off and settled in a single zone. This, according to such expert opinion, would prevent the poor from transgressing into the territory of the rich, and hence help minimize the threat of Povid transmission. 

However, many doubts remained: who, for instance, would labor at the houses of the rich if such a plan were to be implemented? And Who would cook and clean plates at hotels and restaurants patronized by the wealthy? And if the rich start doing their domestic chores themselves, would they still remain worthy enough to be considered ‘rich’? 

In the meantime, another fact regarding poverty drew international attention: that as many as fifteen thousand people die of starvationevery day all over the world. This was not a new finding. Even during COVID-19 pandemic, Worldometer had continued to show—in addition to the numbers of COVID infected –the graphics of people dying of starvation every day around the world. While most people had diligently followed COVID numbers, not many had paid attention to the victims of poverty. As POVID-21 crisis aggravated further, however, newspapers started publishing daily numbers of deaths by starvation on their front pages. 

As the pandemic of povertycontinued to spread, famous Bangladeshi sociologist Dr ShaheedAalam came up with a new explanation. According to Dr Aalam, the main reason behind the transmission of POVID from the poor to the rich was the decline in human compassion in the post-corona period. 

During the corona pandemic, social media was rife with viral images depicting thousands of hungry, helpless workers walking across hundreds of miles in their desperate bids to reach homes. Many rich peoples, who had been witnessing such images for months,had lost their capacity for compassion due to an overdose of such images. Such a loss of compassion caused constriction in their cranial neurons, prompting them to make faulty financial decisions. They had started importing raw materials from Australia and New Zealand instead of Africa and Asia, and had established expensive factories in Europe and Canada instead of exploiting cheap labor available in India and China. 

According to Dr. Aalam, many billionaire industrialists had fallen into bankruptcy due to the consequences of such silly business decisions. Dr. Aalam’s argument was not only dismissed by the scientific communityas silly and unscientific, but also by the World Sociologists Federation. Nevertheless, he continued to inspire some followers in Nepal and India. In the long run, some of them even read seminar papers under titles such as “Compassion, Humanity and Pandemic” in various literary events. 

No matter how hard national governments tried to contain the pandemic of poverty, however, it continued to spread alarmingly. For governments, poverty was not a problem in itself. There were poor people in the world since its beginning, and state machineries had been ‘managing’ itover the centuries through a combination of relief packages and humanistic discourses. The immediate problem was that of containing the global spread of POVID, and that of saving the lives of those super rich billionaires, who constituted 2% of the total global population. 

Rulers, all over the world, were well aware of the fact that if those billionaires were not saved from POVID, many multinational companies would collapse. If such a thing were to happen, won’t it force a radical change in the global economic order? 

Some political and Economic experts feared that this might lead to a collapse of capitalism, and usher in anera of communism. If the condition deteriorated enough to inspire a bloody revolution, would it be possible to contain the masses with limited promises of socialism? 

As the crisis aggravated further, global discussions to free the world from the curse of poverty started in the earnest. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund pledged to invest billions of dollars in Asia and Africa to free these continents from poverty. Member countries of G-7 and G-20 made collective declaration to stop investing in the accumulation of arms and ammunition, as well as made public their pledge to focus on the welfare of the poor. This declaration sent a wave of unbridled happiness and enthusiasm all over the world. 

Powerful countries used to spend about two trillion dollars every year to manage arms and ammunition in an attempt to enhance their military power. Since that fund was now to be redirected to poverty alleviation projects, most people all over the world rejoiced, thinking that poverty would now finally disappear from the face of the world. Deeply moved by the plight of the poor, even the owners of multinational companies started issuing statements, pledging to donate 50 percent of their wealth to poverty mitigation schemes. Poets and writers began writing poems, stories and novels, presenting the poor as central characters of their literary labors. Muktaks and ghazals were written to articulate the aesthetics of poverty. Wealthy businessmen started visiting slums like Dharavi and Koiral, with the aim of distributing laddu, peda and ras–malai among the slum dwellers. Pepperoni Pizzas and cheese cakeswere delivered to the doorsteps of the those living in congested rooms of Queens and East London. Many altruists jumped into the fray and began distributing, not only blanket and clothes, but also hairdryers and mobiles to the poor. They often photographed themselves with the poor and posted the pictures in Facebook and Instagram as proofs of their empathy and altruism. 

The tired, dim eyes of many poor men and women suddenly sparkled with hope. For the first time in the entire history of the humanrace, there appeared clear signs that poverty might be eliminated from the face of the world altogether. 

In the meantime, however, Worldometer revealed a new data: the numbers of those afflicted by the poverty pandemic had begun to decrease. 

Billionaires in America, Japan, Germany, Italy and other countries, who had been thrown onto the streets by the effects of the pandemic, were slowly regaining their financial worth. Some of them had even begun buying new bungalows in Manhattan and Paris. Those who had fallen from the positions of trillionaires to billionaires and from billionaires to millionaires,were rising up again, and were fast regaining their earlier status. 

Was such a thing really happening? Many were doubtful of the validity of the latest data. But for the entire week, following the first shift indicated by Worlometer, numbers of POVID-infections continued to dwindle. Was the graph of infection beginning to turn horizontal at last? Or, was some invisible power tampering with data? 

Whatever it was, the world communityfinally, thankfully, drew in a sign of collective relief. Heads of G-7 countries started arguing that there was still urgent need to enhance military capacity and arms stock in order to keep the world safe from terrorism and from the evil eyes of rogue nations. They stated further that poverty and national securityare two different things, and should not be considered as part of the same package. 

Similarly the bosses of multinational began to say that since poverty was a long-term, ‘systematic’ problem, it should be eradicatedgradually through a global spread of NGOs and INGOs. However, there was no immediate need to pour large sums of money into poverty alleviation projects. Great capitalists of the world who –deeply moved by the plight of the poor– had earlier decided to donate half of their wealth in favor of the poor, lost the sudden surge of empathy and compassion that had moved their hearts earlier. The altruistic souls, too, lost their enthusiasm altogether. Some of them returned back to their earlier businesses and professions, others entered politics with the grand aim of changing the society. 

Global Economic Forum issued a statement, declaring that POVID-21 was not a somatic, physical or social problem. Instead, it was merely an after effect of the economic depression caused by COVID. Following this, it was but natural for the newpoverty abatement efforts to come to a complete halt.  

The world that appeared to be acquiring a new shape reverted back to its earlier order. The poor returned to their ceaseless daily battles against hunger and scarcity once again. Hope that had brightened their tired eyes disappeared once again. Once again, global discourses in favor of economic liberalism began to spread with renewed force.  The poor fell back to their poverty and remained poor. Freeing themselves from the economic depression caused by corona pandemic, the rich kept on getting even richer with each passing day.  

Trans: Mahesh Paudyal