Jabberwocky

Dear Agony Akka

My neighbour Pattabhi looked very glum this morning — like a ginger-eating monkey, as we say. I asked what the matter was, and he whispered, like the chief villain in Telugu cinema, “Haven’t you heard? The corona vaccine has been rolled out in India.” I said, “You silly man, that is a reason to be thrilled, so why are you gloomy?” He told me that I was the silly man, that it is all a big conspiracy, that the vaccine is a secret plot by world governments to implant a 5G chip in the human body, that Bill Gates was supplying the technology. I thought at first that the lockdown had finally driven him nuts or that he had been watching too many Netflix thrillers. But when I googled it, I was shocked to learn that Pattabhi was 100% right! Please advise. Should we ordinary people take this vaccine? Or should we refuse the 5G chip implant?

— Fed-up of Outright Lies

Dear FOOL

First things first: you do yourself enormous injustice when you put yourself in the category of “ordinary people”. You, sir, are no ordinary FOOL. Just the fact that you have cracked the top-secret plot by governments to implant 5G chips into our bodies establishes this. And the fact that you did this with just a little bit of sleuthing help from Mr. ‘Paranoia’ Pattabhi and a few wise Internet people with colourful imaginations certifies you as extraordinarily talented. Please don’t be falsely modest. It reminds me of Savita, our newest women’s group member, who takes selfies in front of a mirror just to show off her iPhone 12 Pro Max.

But I’m disappointed in only one thing. Why are you still spreading reheated versions of corona conspiracies from last year? Since then, as you know, the world has changed.

Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been permanently banned, which means that other political leaders worldwide are doing all the hard work of peddling conspiracy theories. Thankfully, they seem to be doing a good job so far.

For instance, Brazil’s president, who has all along been highly sceptical that there is such a thing as a pandemic at all (even though he was himself infected), has revealed that the vaccines may turn people into crocodiles and cause women to sprout a beard. He also warns that it may turn men effeminate. (Personally, I can think of a lot of men who would be vastly improved by such a change.)

A Russian state TV channel, which is just like our own ‘nationalist’ channels, only quieter, countered this. The U.K. vaccine, said the channel, would NOT turn people into crocodiles. It would turn them into monkeys. It even showed pictures of the British Prime Minister as a hairy orangutan, but the effect was less scary than expected because few viewers could tell the difference.

And in India, Samajwadi Party leader Ashutosh Sinha said the vaccine may be a sly form of population control because it could make men impotent. However, as other astute people pointed out, with Sanjay Gandhi long dead, who could have masterminded this twist?

In short, while it’s true that the BJP government has behaved like it is P.T. Usha’s mother and pushed a not-yet-ready vaccine to the finish line, this does not mean that anybody is going to change into the vahan of any gods. Nor is the vaccine capable of implanting us with a 5G chip. Is this an Alien movie or real life? Your words reminded me fondly of that ultra-intelligent TV anchor during demonetisation days, who told us that the new and ugly ₹2,000 notes were embedded with 4G chips to trace black money.

But — if you still believe strongly that Bill Gates plotted the pandemic so that he could use the 5G vaccine to monitor billions of people and milk their data, I would hate for earth to lose your superior intellect. Refuse the vaccine but donate your brain. Contribute to the growth of science.

— AA

agony.akka@gmail.com