Wishing the Missing

All and sundry wished someone a happy birthday on WhatsApp yesterday only for someone to realize today that he wasn't in the group at all! 

Being Missed

It's an unbelievably weird feeling when I see MK's name in mails and am reminded that he's no more in the organisation. He seems to be enjoying his life right now but I know he's missing this place terribly too.

Surrounded

Suddenly so many of my acquaintances and friends have contracted the virus. Many of them with routines not too different from ours. It now feels like a matter of time. 

Invaded

The gloomy weather has suddenly turned glorious and now it's raining butterflies in my area. Mostly Blue Tigers. 

On My Own

My first Ganesha Chaturthi without parents and sister in many many years. But we celebrated with whatever fanfare possible. Rishi is happy, which is no small feat these days! 

Questionable

It feels like I live to ask questions and to wait for the answers. 

It's annoying when life's way of making you forget your grouse is simply giving you a bigger problem. 

Dilemmas

When someone sends me a message, I wish I could say "hey, I was thinking of you just now!", without a second thought. But instead the mind starts wondering if it's appropriate, if it'll be taken wrongly, if it'll spoil whatever that is. Maybe someday. 

Good Bad Times

Going to my grandmother's place was always something I looked forward to but going there during Navaratri holidays was something more special. I got to visit most of my not-so-near relatives in those nine days. Every afternoon I would accompany one of my older cousins or aunt G for lunch in one of the houses in the radius of two kms. The charm would wear off beyond four days but even if I managed to defy my mother, it was difficult to resist my aunt's bidding. So I ended up going, hoping that there would be some book or magazine to kill time while my aunt talked a year's worth with those genial relatives. 

One of the houses I typically went to was Renukakka's house. They were distant relatives but Renukakka was my cousin Radhakka's childhood friend. Ever-smiling and chatty, she was my favorite those days, though I hardly knew what to talk to her, who was a good ten years older. I remember that she had some older brothers too, who were equally charming. 

Then last week, my father forwarded me an article from the local newspaper. It mentioned a man whose name I didn't recognize, who was struggling to support his aged mother and his disabled 25-year old son. His wife had passed away and he wanted to hire a nurse to care for his son and was looking for financial support from the readers. I asked Pappa who it was and he said it was one of Renukakka's brothers. I read the article again but it was very difficult to digest that the helpless man in it was going to replace the cheerful memory I was carrying for so long. 

Near, Far...

This season is making my office, my hometown, Yellowstone National Park and space seem equidistant. 

 A terrible terrible mess of a day. 'How not to spoil something' kind of a day but it's too late now. 

Disappointed

 It's not fair that a movie on Shakuntala Devi doesn't have a single dialogue in Kannada. I can't imagine this happening if her language was something else. 

Midnight Madness

God should save me. God knows from what.

On the other hand, I wonder what an atheist would've said, if he was as excited and worried as I am now. 

Some things in life are like Dravid's stint at the crease. You eagerly look forward to it. But it's so difficult to see it ending that you sometimes wonder in your desperation if it shouldn't have started at all. The wait seems much better. 

Shining a Light

I go cribbing about my life's shortcomings and the next day the sun hides behind a thick blanket of clouds the whole day making me crave for nothing else.

Insecure

Two of our security guards have left for Nepal. Our contractor says he's had to let go more than hundred Nepalese men, who've returned to homeland because of the virus scare. I hope it's nothing to do with our recent troubles with Nepal.