One flu over the Makta Pot

Today is Dahi Handi, the national day of celebration of Janmashtami, and birth of the much worshipped Lord Krishna.

Take away the big 3 of Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna is right up there with the top boys of Hindu Gods.

Along with Ganesh the multi-limbed Elephant headed idol of millions he is a popular, well supported God but without the might of the aforementioned triumvirate. In football parlance he’s kind of an Everton of the Hindu world, always in with a shout of the UEFA cup and often a good each-way long shot for an FA cup final.

You see, Krishna was a bit of a problem child or so the story goes. He had a rather unusual love of butter and was constantly on the nick for his favourite dairy products. Dahi Handi is a reenactment of Krishna's much fabled efforts to steal butter from earthen pots.

These earthenware pots, known as Makta , contain prizes in cash or kind and are suspended from a high point perhaps 10m high. Teams of local youths, form a distinctly unsafe human pyramid by standing one on top of each others shoulder until they are high enough to reach and break the pot.

Of course, building a human pyramid would be to simple a task so onlookers throw water on the human pyramid to stop them breaking the pot.

Breaking of the pot is followed by prize distribution. Devotees believe that the broken pieces of earthen pot will keep away mice and negative powers from their homes.

What breaking the pot doesn’t claim to do is prevent the participants from contracting swine flu.

Now, this I quite ironic given that Schools, Malls, Cinemas, Gymnasiums etc are all closed through a panic bordering upon hysteria yet everyone is happy to gather en masse, in close proximity, clambering over each other in order to break the pots.

What I find particularly intriguing is the high incidence of dacoit impersonators who have appeared upon the streets since Wednesday. These individuals, and not only from the less educated classes I might add, walk about with their mouths covered by a loosely tied handkerchief, their fearful eyes twitching this way and that, alert to any signs of viral infection floating in the miasma.

And what, pray tell, is this going to do to protect you? You are breathing in the same air only now from beneath your handkie. Does a disrupted airflow prevent contagion? Not to my knowledge.

The TV News channels (and believe me, there are plenty enough of them) seem to have a singular aim to stir the hysteria with their over animated reporting, their lack of assessment of “facts” and opinion, and their willingness to allow the ill-informed public to present their thoughts to the wider world without any questioning of their beliefs.

Even the Hindi radio channels interject their annoying 10-song playlist with “blah blah unintelligible blah, Swine Flu hai, blah blah blah”.

People are cancelling plans for the forthcoming holiday weekend in fear of picking up the virus in the countryside. Why???

My MBA educated underlings have both cancelled weekend travel plans, though one of them had little fear in shipping his parents off to London earlier this week for a holiday in the Swine Flu Capital of Europe where the rate of infection is something like 300x higher than in Mumbai.

Captain, this is illogical.

I mean what ever happened to intelligent enquiry and rational calculation of risk?

Oh yes, I forgot, T.I.I.

This Is India