In the history of Bangladesh, this Baishakh is unique. Even a centenarian is unlikely to have ever remembered a high summer month this cool in his or her lifetime. It is extraordinarily different for more than one reason: first, people have been forced to curtail movement almost everywhere and in crowded urban centres they have been instructed to stay locked-in. So pleasant is the weather and yet there is no way of going out, meeting people, doing daily chores or regular business let alone partying or arranging public meetings. An invisible, deadly killer called coronavirus is on the prowl to claim its next victim.
If, however, one can objectively look around and for the time being drive away the thought of the deadly virus, one is pleasantly surprised to see that the sweltering heat has all but disappeared. Every year at this time when Baishakh is in its fourth quarter, temperature rises to the maximum and under the cauldron-like sun people staying in the open simply gasp for breath. Not this year. Proving scientists' prediction -- in tropical countries 'wet bulb' temperature will rein in -wrong, here is a most pleasant -pleasanter than spring-weather that has set in.
To make the weather cooler, spells of showers -sometimes light and sometimes heavy -come to wash away dust and dirt that may have gathered on leaves of trees to give those a fresh look. So far no Kalbaishakhi at its most devastating has made its visitation in the country, although strong winds barely called a storm have on occasions swept some swathes of this land. Overall, the weather could not be any better.
Then what has made this happen? Many consider that Nature ravaged outrageously by humankind has revolted to return a backlash. Whether it has done so deliberately to punish the most rational animal on the planet or not can be a subject of logical arguments but about one thing there is no doubt that the worldwide lockdown has done immense good to it. If anything, Nature has got an opportunity to nurse itself in peace. With factories and industries remaining shut and an overwhelming proportion of fossil fuel-guzzling transports not belching out carbon dioxide and depositing CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) into the stratosphere, the planet's environment has become cleaner and comparatively more wholesome.
When environmentalists and activists of Greenpeace movement cannot persuade policymakers to go for a car-free day on roads of a city or similar other positive actions to halt environmental pollution, a submicroscopic organism called a virus has not even made a plea to the world's most powerful leaders. It has simply subjected them to an arm-twisting tactic. The heated wrangle over the origin of the virus, secrecy of its spread and the likes only expose the naivety of leaders leading powerful nations. Meanwhile, the virus, if it were capable, would have spared a chuckle over the human folly.
It is a time for taking a deep breath and doing some soul-searching. What indeed has gone wrong with the present human civilization! No, political bickering has been started in order to blur the vision. This means people who matter will learn no lesson from this cataclysmic reversal. The extensive lockdown offers a lesson on reining in the mad rush for wealth creation and excessive consumerism. People can, as the lockdown shows, live a simpler life without harming the balance between the human race and Nature.
In this context it is worth remembering that the Amazon forest fires and the Australian bush fire and a few other unnatural phenomena occurring in different parts of the globe prior to emergence of the virus only showed the symptom of Nature in turmoil. The virus has given it the much needed rest to recuperate from wounds inflicted on its body by man. This planet has been exploited beyond limit, now it must regain some of its resources such as forests, rivers, ice caps and glaciers in order to continue its journey in as orderly a manner as possible. Since humans have been the only culprit to outrageously pillage its resources, they must now warn themselves, 'thus far and no further'.