Creating lemonade out of lemons: Cheers to all those to made the most of 2020!
Anil hears the baby crying upstairs in her nursery. She’s woken up from her mid-day nap. Earlier today than usual, he thinks with a lopsided smile. He hears the sounds as his wife opens the door to the yellow wallpapered room, rocks Arya back and forth, murmuring against her ear. Snatches from a familiar Hindi lullaby crowd his mind.
Anil shakes his head, forces himself to concentrate on the email sent from his boss about the reopening of distribution channels to China. In less than an hour, I’ll have time to go meet baby Arya. Eat my lunch with her perched on my lap. She will coo and gurgle. I’ll talk back to her. Teach her how to say ‘Papa’. Arya will look at me and laugh. Ah, what bliss. A wide, genuine smile like curling oil spreads across his face. Thank you, Bhagwan for this pandemic!
Her brain has turned to mush: Inside Nursing Homes
After months of near isolation inside her senior care facility—India Home—Suman Pandey no longer recognizes her daughter, Tanya.
Tanya stumbles out of her mother’s room towards the nursing station just outside, too overwhelmed to speak. She’d expected to see some changes, yes—after four months of not being able to visit Mummy she’d felt her chest heave at the shrunken woman she found slumped against the pillows, her thick black hair had gone fine, wispy and completely white. Bits of pink scalp showed through. Had it truly been so long?
But what made Tanya’s knees buckle and her mouth fall open in a cry that was like the wail of a broken, desolate heart was the blank face her 84-year-old mother turned to her as she entered, bearing a box of Mummy’s favorite besan ladoos.
“Who are you?” Suman Pandey asked, her eyes huge and confused.
There\’s A New Demon in Town: Lord Corona
Good thing it was her shift that night.
Reema was sweaty and grumpy. In full PPE (gown, N95 mask, face shield, and gloves) for the past five hours. Every time she exhaled her glasses and face shield fogged up. She tasted stale air and burnt coffee from breathing in and out through her mask. (Note to self: schedule teeth cleaning on a weekend that you are not on call!)
She got a page. Getting a page marked ‘urgent’ was not unusual because the St. Vincent de Paul Modesto Shelter had new admissions all the time for people experiencing homelessness who were positive for Covid-19 and need a safe place to recover. But the content of the page was unusual. A new mom and her two-week-old baby with Covid-19 were on their way to the shelter.
Corona on Campus
Kavya took a deep breath and released it—exhaling deeply—just as her mother, a yoga teacher, had taught her to do. Last month she had finally set foot at the University of Miami campus—a day she’d been dreaming of since she entered high school.
True, college no longer looked as it had when she’d toured the campus in April 2015 with her mom and brother—at that time, crowds blocked the hallways and stairs. Kids here, kids there, everywhere, laughing, shouting, rushing to and fro, greeting one another, and talking over their plans for the school year. She’d spent the time roaming around, familiarizing herself with the layout of the campus, and learning the names of the various fraternities and the buildings where they were housed—some old and vine-clad, others new and shiny in the sun.
Dating and Mating During Covid-19
Her son turned 28 last week. Dating was complicated for Avi and often a clumsy dance even in the best of times. Given the pandemic and the fear of a highly contagious virus for which there is yet no cure, he had resisted every conversation Priya tried to have with him about going out and meeting someone.
“Bumble allows virtual or socially distanced-with-a-mask dates,“ she said to him at the dinner table as he spooned for himself a generous helping of the chicken curry and rice. She had made his favorites in readiness for this conversation—crisp masala okra, raita with cucumbers, and Karahi chicken curry. It was a bonus time they were enjoying with him ever since he had moved back home during the coronavirus lockdown, and she was determined to get him hitched. “Or, if you have Zoom fatigue, we can try the Mumbai matchmaker from the show on Netflix that everybody’s been talking about, “ she continued, busying her hands with adding sweet tamarind chutney to a petri dish.
What To Keep and What To Throw, When Nothing is Normal?
Arun inhales deeply, contorts his body in a suryaasan, and exhales his breath out in a rush. Memories of his father crowd into his brain like pictures on a screen.
A week ago came the earth-shattering phone call from Kakaji the manservant who had lived with his Dad for thirty years. More family than caretaker—Kakaji was lank and shriveled of limb, grizzled of hair with a crooked eagle beak, and a Hitler-like mustache, but dependable and always-present.
The funeral took place in 24 hours. “They don’t hold the body here for more than 48 hours, Arun beta,” Kakaji had croaked.
Where Do We Go Now?
Ravi Yadhav and his family of four had no desire to leave the slum colony on the outskirts of Sarita Vihar in New Delhi. Only an open sewer overflowing with rubbish separated their cluster of mud houses and bullock cows from Sarita Vihar’s gleaming skyscrapers and brand-new apartment towers that stood like fists raised triumphantly towards the Gods. The smell of the slum—of urine, the stench from the open sewer, old grease, and burning cow dung sometimes so clogged his nostrils that the naked longing to feel again the fresh scent wafting from the golden fields of wheat in his village made his stomach clench.
Pandemic Life Musings . . .
At the start of the pandemic, my twenty-four-year-old nephew who’d come home from Los Angeles to check in on how my husband and I were doing (given our dangerous age bracket, he’d said) went out and bought two gallons of Arrowhead pure distilled water.
He is three months overdue for a haircut so that his hair looks like a black mop as he stands with his hands on his hips, and when he smiles, he looks almost radiant. I turn sparkling eyes on him, beaming a Tom Cruise worthy smile at his thoughtfulness. Inwardly, I cringe. My American nephew is used to purified water from a water filter pitcher. I’ve grown up with water bursting from a rusty tap in a kitchen with twenty-year-old appliances, the pictures of Guru Nanak and Pandit Nehru hanging on the wall, the remains of a cockroach that was pounded on the head still to be cleared from the gaping drain hole.
I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown (Part III) . . .
Day 74 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * *
A lock of hair catches on her dry lips and she shoves it out of the way before rolling over and burrowing back into her duvet. Even before Pooja’s eyes open she can sense that Mohit is awake. The sound of his impatient voice floats from the kitchen where’s he’s making a business call and echoes off the walls of the broom closet. She’s been falling asleep in the overcrowded cupboard beneath the stairs almost every night, waking up cramped and tired in the tiny space.
I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown (Part II) . . .
Day 63 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * * *
There is a glass cup on the side table in the office, a half-finished bottle of red wine beside the table. A pack of cigarettes calls to Vinay from the shelf; he hesitates but doesn’t take them. He glances at his wristwatch for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. It is 10 p.m., PST. It is the right time to call her. It will be 9:30 a.m. Indian Standard Time.
Carefully, resolutely, he punches in the number and waits for her to pick up the phone. Once the pleasantries are dispensed with, his mother wants to know when she’s going to see him.