It occurred to me today that I hardly know any 50-plus people. I know 40-pluses and 60-pluses but not in between. So now that I've begun conversing with one, I wonder what the ideal topics are. But I know the other person can't carry it off for long so maybe I shouldn't worry so much. 

Our daily infection numbers are really numbing. 

Sunny Voices

You have a terrible day with your head splitting at the end of it and all you want is to sleep and then suddenly someone drops you a message and the headache vanishes and you feel as fresh as a newborn. If only people knew! 

Casting the Hope

Yesterday I called up my grandaunt who lives in another corner of Bangalore. She is 80+ and lives all alone. She said her routine was more or less unaffected but she couldn't visit anyone outside her street. In the course of our conversation she said someone mentioned to her that thanks to our food habits, Havyakas were largely untouched by the virus. In fact, she didn't know any Havyaka who had contracted it. Now, many among her kith and kin, including her daughter, granddaughter and myself, are married outside the community. I wanted to tease her about the fate of our spouses and children but decided against it. 

I just want to start seeing the face of seven a.m. again. It hasn't happened in a while. To break the damn cycle. I'm desperate now. 

Quarantined Tunes

Yesterday Anu challenged me to spend a day without singing and today is proving to be a very tough day. A hundred times today I've let out a song only to gulp it down immediately. So now these unvoiced words are crowding inside my head. Rishi says I should sing nonstop tomorrow. 

"Ani, what did you learn in Science today?" "That cigarettes have butts too!"

Footloose Days

My father's place near Honavar has many cashew trees around it. One of them was my childhood favourite because it had horizontal branches, which was ideal to sit and play the bus game. I would alternately be a passenger and the conductor, enjoying the juicy cashew fruit, if I spotted one. And we would hunt for the fallen cashew seeds among the dry leaves and promptly roast them among embers in the evening. Oh, the taste of smoky cashews is something! 

Maybe the other reason for that tree to be special was that it signalled the beginning of the end of my long journey from home to grandmother's. At the foot of the sprawling tree was the gravelly slope and if you let yourself loose, you would land at my grandmother's gate. My summer officially began that way. 

So I had taken the tree for granted until one summer I was told that it was out of bounds. I must've been around nine. I didn't understand. The tree was very much there! Then I came to know that it was never ours. It was public property and that year, local officials had made it clear to everyone that they were the owners of it. So I was not to pluck any fruit and if I found any seeds, I was to let them be unless I wanted to be carried away by the official stooges. Of course I didn't. 

The fear lasted only for a few days. Because the same cousins who told me scary stories about the stooges also told me they weren't around all the time, especially in the noon. So I lied to my grandma and followed the boys to the tree one afternoon, albeit with some misgivings. I looked as far as I could and there was nobody there. So things went back to normal for me and I was soon busy chatting and sifting through the leaves. The dry leaves drown out all other noise but something made me look up after a while. And there was this guy, walking stealthily towards me, just a couple of feet away. He stretched his hand when I saw him and my limbs froze. Then the instincts took over and I screamed and ran for my life. Of course the slope saved me but I don't think I've ever run faster. I saw that man's gleeful look in my nightmares for some time. 

The tree is still there but it wasn't the same anymore. When I look at it now, I only wonder what would've been had that man caught me. Would he have beaten me more or my parents? 

The Woman with a P(l)an

P is sometimes concerned about how hectic my worklife is becoming; calls from morning to night(I hate it!) mostly. He wonders if it's really worth it, considering that I end up neglecting my family. 

Incidentally, such concerns mostly surface on the days I'm not able to make tea for him in the morning or evening. 

Learning languages is fun. Now all I want is to go to those countries and speak them. 

Bad Lessons

If I'm tired of worrying about Corona and want to find something worse, my children's online classes are very useful. Just a look at the comments these children post for everyone to see is enough to trouble you. Corona will possibly go away someday but what about this insensitivity and insolence? While teenagers' comments range from dirty, flirtatious to insulting, the ten year-olds are only a few steps behind. But what's also worrisome is teachers' helplessness to take charge of the situation. One teacher literally begged them to stop saying she was getting nightmares. Why shouldn't there be penalty for such bad behaviour? 

In Anu's class, after reading many comments from her classmates on the games they were playing, Anu asked them to stop it and listen to what the teacher was saying. I asked her if she would've done the same in a classroom. She thought and said probably not; she might not have had the courage to take on so many. 

Reduced Visibility

I watched Deadwind Season 2 in the first two days. There is some talk of Season 3, where I wonder if they'll introduce Sofia's unknown father. Anyway, that's all next year and I find it difficult to be enthused about it. These days anything beyond two weeks is looking too far and uncertain. But I still try to cheer myself up thinking about all those beautiful places that I want to visit. Those seem farther too. 

By the End of the Day

Thank God, Rishi's results didn't throw any tantrums. And he took the minor disappointment of not standing first in his school(he missed by one mark) in his stride. So that's done. 

The first case of COVID-19 in our apartments today. Cases in Bangalore hitting the roof, hoping that this indeed is the roof. 

Resultants

Rishi's exam results will be out tomorrow. He's expecting some disappointments and is dreading the sympathies of many that will follow. I remember mine all too well. 

The Door(Doa) Way

I was surprised to find that the Japanese call the door 'doa', which seemed borrowed from English. I mean, they would surely have had a native word for a door? I explored and found an interesting answer, which said the Japanese had sliding doors before and indeed have a word for it. And doa is used for the hinged doors of today. 

The Distanced

There are a few infections around my grandmother's place but my kith and kin aren't much worried. Because the ones infected belong to Scheduled Castes and are as such socially distanced, in the highest way possible. "Imagine how worrisome it would've been if they were Brahmins!", someone said. Really. 

(H)owling

No matter how hard I try I can't hit the bed before 1:30 in the night. Work is just too too much. People want to have a Zoom call at 10 p.m.(which I ignore). I don't seem to be able to break this loop. There is this friend of mine, H, who says she sleeps by 9 and wakes up at 4 and runs four km every morning. She lives just 5 kms away from me but her schedule is as good as in a different timezone!