Great time travel

Chapter 630: The Blessing Ceremony During the Plague Period

Chapter 30. The Blessing Ceremony in the Plague Period

After finishing the romantic and ambiguous topic about Indian goddesses, Li Wei and Wang Qiu naturally talked about the current focus of world public opinion—the "Great Indian Plague" that is attacking cities and conquering territories around the world, causing people of all ethnic groups on five continents to suffer.

"...at present the domestic situation is tense, the national economy is in a semi-paralyzed state, traffic is difficult, business is sluggish due to panic among the people, goods are piled up in factories, and students in many schools are on vacation. Martial law has been enforced in Shanghai and Beijing , the army directly took to the streets to crack down, and the situation is barely stable. But Hong Kong is a hard-hit area, and it is almost becoming a dead port...Taiwan is also in a state of chaos..."

Pointing to the picture on the computer screen, Wang Qiu said to Li Wei, "...the mainland can let the People's Liberation Army impose martial law on the streets, but Hong Kong will be more troublesome. As a result, countless hooligans will appear, robbing houses and taking advantage of the chaos to make a fortune. It is said that It seems that some people still set fire to carry out terrorist attacks. And the opposition political group insists on pouring sewage on the heads of the troops stationed in Hong Kong. While mobilizing students to surround the barracks and make troubles, they accuse the mainlanders of "disrupting Hong Kong" and creating a mess. I heard that the whole The traffic on Hong Kong Island has been completely paralyzed, and even the subway has been stopped. This is the first time in decades!

Not to mention Taiwan, members of a bunch of radical political groups are themselves the main force of vandalism and looting - there are people in North Korea and China who are so rebellious! "

"...It sounds messy enough - after all, we Chinese are not as docile as Indians. Even if Indians die more." Li Wei shook his head.

"...Moreover, this plague has not only infected humans, but also poultry and livestock. More than 20 billion infected chickens have been forced to be culled in major chicken farms across the country, and pig farms and pastures in Inner Mongolia are also terrible. It is expected that the price of meat will skyrocket several times or even ten times this year.”

Wang Qiu sighed and continued, "...even if you want to import meat from foreign countries to replace it, it is impossible, because the livestock breeding industry in the United States and Argentina has also suffered a devastating blow. It is estimated that the poor in the United States will soon be unable to drink. With milk and fried chicken, you can only eat bread in cold water. For this reason, the central government has urgently formulated a propaganda strategy, preparing to promote a vegetarian diet for all, and asking party members and civil servants to play a leading role...Of course, the benefits are not No, the rats in the sewers and the stray cats and dogs on the streets also died of plague..."

——The current global outbreak of the weakened version of the T virus is probably equivalent to a comprehensive upgraded version of foot-and-mouth disease + bird flu + Spanish flu. Human beings are of course various domesticated animals with many deaths and injuries under the raging disease and poor medical conditions , In fact, the death is even more full of pits and valleys - most of the so-called antiviral drugs currently available to human beings are actually just to enhance the body's immunity, and have no straightforward ability to eliminate viruses.

"...The same is true here in India. I heard that tens of thousands of sacred cows on the streets of Mumbai, Calcutta, and Patna died in one go..."

Li Wei curled his lips, "...But Indians are basically vegetarians, so it shouldn't matter if they eat less meat like eggs, milk, and meat."

"... Cattle and sheep can never die no matter what, but those rare and protected animals that were originally small in number will be in danger of extinction after experiencing this mass death. For example, the trees in Australia Wombats are dying in large numbers, and the situation of sloths and kiwis is terrible. We also lost hundreds of pandas in China within a few days, and the staff of the panda breeding center in Sichuan are almost crying to death..."

Wang Qiu continued to add, "...the zoos in several major cities in China are almost on the verge of being wiped out... In addition, many pet shops were forced to close down and go bankrupt because the cats in their shops All the dogs are dead - I heard that the owner jumped off the building because of it!"

"...Hey, in the current situation, people's lives are no longer cared about, so how can they care about these animals?"

Li Wei shrugged his shoulders, "... let's stop here for now. By the way, I have been staying in the hotel for the past few days, so it must be quite boring! It just so happens that there will be a big event here recently——Chand La told me last night that in order to pray for the blessings and blessings of the gods and eliminate the panic among the people, the religious people in Bodh Gaya are planning to hold a grand parade and ceremony the day after tomorrow. Are you interested in going with us to see it? "

"...Festival? Parade?!! When this kind of infectious disease is prevalent?!!! Why don't you even have the most basic common sense?"

Wang Qiu's voice suddenly rose by an octave, and his face was full of disbelief, "...Don't they know that when an infectious disease spreads, such a large-scale crowd gathering is precisely the worst way to spread the plague?" What a great way! Isn’t this an act of death?”

"...So what if you are trying to die? What science are you talking about with a bunch of gods? This is not the Black Death. Once infected, you will definitely die."

Li Wei rolled his eyes and said, "...you don't know how high the illiteracy rate is among Indians, and how obsessed they are with religion. Compared with those difficult to understand health and medical knowledge, These pious people are still more interested in kowtow and burning incense.”

"...Doesn't their government care? Even if ordinary people lack knowledge, there should be a few people who understand among the officials?"

"...The local government in Bihar seems to think that stability and reassurance are more important than quarantine and epidemic prevention. Because the government's reputation in India is too bad, it can only be more effective if those eminent monks and priests are involved. As for the central government in New Delhi, for the They don't care about this kind of local affairs, and they don't bother to care about it... Besides, they don't necessarily care about the death of thousands or tens of thousands of people-there are too many such epidemics in India..."

——The design of the political structure of modern India can be regarded as a model of democratized "small government". The authority of the central government in New Delhi is very limited.The states in India not only have their own armed forces, but even their languages ​​are not unified.The power distribution model of the entire national regime is somewhat similar to that of the United States before the Civil War, and the degree of national cohesion and centralization is probably not as good as that of the United States at that time. At best, it is only slightly better than the modern European Union—at least the United States. The language and writing are always unified, and India has more than a dozen official languages ​​printed on banknotes alone, and Indians in different places cannot communicate with each other at all.

In the early days of the founding of India, when the strongman Nehru was in power, with the lofty prestige of him and the Gandhi family, he was still able to monopolize the power and order the states to do whatever they wanted.However, after Nehru's death, the power of the Indian central government has been declining day by day, and the internal intrigue has become more and more serious. Some people use corruption and bribery to form cliques; Some put pressure on opponents; some agree to various unreasonable "self-government" demands of local governments in various states to obtain the support of local separatist forces; as for the indiscriminate use of welfare amnesty criminals to buy people's hearts, it is even more common— —Although most of them may not be able to be implemented in the end, often [-]% of the promises can be fulfilled, and one of the achievements is not bad.

In short, up to now, New Delhi can still maintain a unified attitude towards the outside world, but at home, it has reached the point where it can do anything theoretically and control everything, but in fact it can do nothing and control nothing.Even investing in the construction of a railway spanning two states can take 30 to [-] years.As for the small things like religious parades and ceremonies held in Bihar during the plague, no one would care.

"...In the final analysis, since they Indians don't care about their own lives, why are we foreigners so careless?"

Li Weiru concluded, and then stuffed two beautifully printed tickets into Wang Qiu's hands, "... I heard that the festival will be very exciting, and it should be worth a visit. So I specially asked Chandra to help me get a few A seat ticket for the VIP seat, don't forget to watch it together..."

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On the morning of the third day, as Li Wei said, the whole Bodh Gaya became lively.Whether it is Buddhist monks, priests of Indian temples, or all kinds of believers, they all put on their brightest clothes, painted their faces colorfully, and carried out gorgeous statues and flags. Floats adorned with garlands, bas-reliefs, and religious splendor were rolled out, and drums and gongs were blaring for the procession to begin.

The fly in the ointment was that on the night before the festival, there was a sudden heavy rain. The amount of precipitation was terribly large, and it quickly flooded several streets. The water level did not recede until after dawn.So that as soon as you step out of the luxurious hotel gate, you can see pedestrians and vehicles outside the door are struggling to move in the knee-deep dirty water, and there are feces and garbage floating everywhere on the water surface, which is really disgusting .

——To be honest, there is no real paradise in this world, and there are also many dirty and messy places in Chinese cities.But when Wang Qiu was in China, he never felt much discomfort because of this, but when he went to the streets of Indian cities, he often felt nauseous.

The reason for this is that although there are indeed many places in China that are dirty, generally only the places that should be dirty are dirty in China, such as garbage stations, septic tanks, construction sites of unfinished buildings, back alleys of restaurants and some Urban villages, etc.; and those places that should not be dirty, such as citizen squares, commercial office building areas, comprehensive commercial buildings, landscape avenues, etc., although the respective facilities may not be perfect, at least the Chinese will try their best to clean them.Therefore, although there are dirty places in Chinese cities, they are predictable and avoidable, and Chinese people are psychologically prepared.

Not so in India.The places in India that should be dirty are of course very dirty, so dirty that you can't bear to look directly at them, but those places that shouldn't be dirty are also surprisingly dirty, from hospitals to squares, and around so-called holy temples, and even The rich people's area full of garden houses, will walk and walk, and suddenly find a large pile of cow dung or garbage dumps on the ground in front of them!And it never seemed like anyone wanted to clean it.It is often seen that tall modern skyscrapers stand side by side with large areas of dilapidated and dirty shantytowns, forming a very sharp contrast.

Therefore, this kind of dirt in Indian cities is very abrupt, unpredictable, and psychologically unprepared.A certain traveler originally thought that he had finally emerged from the dirty slums, and was planning to enjoy the tropical sunshine on the square in the bustling city center, when he looked up and saw a pair of young men and women dressed in fashion, casually walking Flirting among all kinds of garbage.Or the solemn priests and monks, sitting in the middle of the green belt full of excrement, chanting scriptures and practicing Zen... This feels really badass, and it will make people mistakenly think that they are staying in a giant garbage dump!

But no matter what, the Indians in Bodh Gaya still took action. Regardless of the silted sewage on the street and the garbage around them, they held up the statues and amulets devoutly, and chanted various scriptures and hymns , moving slowly on this land where the Buddha once enlightened.

Behind them, there are pickup trucks, minibuses, buses, convertibles, and even tractors decorated as floats... Although the chassis is not very good, the huge paintings and The statues of gods and Buddhas are very exquisite and can be called resplendent and magnificent.Tweeters are also installed on some floats, constantly playing deafening religious music or songs.

Many Buddhist monks and Hindu priests in dazzling costumes, as well as some beautiful girls carefully dressed as goddesses or fairies, holding various metal or wooden instruments, stood on the car and waved to the believers on both sides regards.Some strangely dressed Indian snake charmers also played flutes in the car, directing the pet snakes in the small bamboo baskets to dance.There was even an Indian Christian priest who came from nowhere, holding a tall Styrofoam cross, standing on the back of a small pickup truck, and swaggering through the city amidst the parade.

In this dark moment when the plague is raging, Indians who were originally pious and godly put their hands together, prayed silently, and even worshiped, hoping that the gods from all walks of life will appear soon, so that this epidemic that has already claimed countless lives The "big flu" will recede as soon as possible.

However, despite the lofty theme of compassion put forward by the organizers, in general, at the parade site, the general solemnity of religious ceremonies is still not felt much, but more of the characteristics of rural temple fairs. Hustle, hustle and bustle.There are also many tourists from various countries who were forced to stay in Bodh Gaya due to the epidemic, holding their mobile phones or cameras, smiling and taking pictures of the parade.Whenever a beautifully decorated float passed by, all kinds of weird cheers came and went, full of carnival atmosphere like a carnival.

Looking at the joyful atmosphere in the crowd, Wang Qiu couldn't help but realize something—although this kind of religious activity can't really borrow divine power to wipe out the epidemic, at least it seems to be soothing and alleviating fear. There are still some effects: there is a limit to anyone's psychological endurance, and once the string in the heart is broken by fear, they will often do a lot of crazy things and cause huge disasters to society.

And a grand religious festival can relieve the negative emotions of believers to a considerable extent and avoid certain riots and tragedies.

Alas, no matter how much they struggle, the "Indian flu" has already passed its peak if calculated according to the outbreak cycle of infectious diseases.Domestic targeted special-effect vaccines have also started small-scale production, and it is expected that the epidemic will be brought under control in a while... Wang Qiu thought so, while dragging Ju Chuan Shizuka who was still looking around, and went straight to Chandler Pull the car arranged by Mr., ready to go to the festival venue to watch the excitement.

However, Wang Qiu forgot that although the catastrophe of the "Indian flu" caused by the leak of the weakened version of the T virus from another world has begun to come to an end, it will no longer cause too much harm to the world.However, as a former reincarnation who escaped from the infinite space, before the terrifying main god system is completely destroyed, he himself is a living and mobile source of disaster... and the next disaster has entered the countdown!

——As fellow sufferers who escaped from the infinite space together in the past, Shinnosuke Nohara once attracted alien warships and interstellar aliens, Haruhi Suzumiya attracted Reaper, Doraemon attracted freezing ice and snow storms, and Wang Qiu also It has led to a period of high incidence of wormholes, and opened a magnificent era of national traversal... So, what kind of "surprise" will it bring to the happy Indian people without Wang Qiu knowing it?

Some kind of unimaginable and terrible haze has quietly shrouded the head of this holy land where Buddha enlightened...