The Positive Feeling

The water filter and I are overworking right now. It feels like exhaustion could kill. 

Low Visibility

So there it is. My husband has lost his sense of smell today. I have a mild cough, kids have cough, cold and mild fever. Our neighbours on either side have tested positive and we had a mass testing in the building today. Results awaited. The question now is how many of us will turn out to be positive and what we should do if it's not all. My mind has kind of stopped showing me the way, I want that report quickly. 

The Ghost

All of us telling each other to be careful but suddenly not sure of the definition. So many people wondering how they got infected at all. 

Proof of Life

BigBasket orders, which were delivered within five hours just days ago are now taking more than 48 hours. The feeling of being tied up is just getting more accute everyday. Of course it's nothing compared to the misery you read and feel helpless about. It's just unbelievably terrible that we can lose so many people to this each day.  There is nothing to do but to wait patiently. But I'm finding patience in short supply. 

The Square One

I have a book that I need to return to the library but I'm loathe to step into that place now. Just twenty days ago, I would've been skipping there. A matter of another ten days, hopefully. Life is almost like what it was last April. Kids have been banned from playing outside, domestic helps have been asked to stay off and we've been advised not to use the lifts because there are cases on almost every floor now. Anu is moving listlessly, waiting for one of us to get free to give her company and frankly, playing with her keeps me going. Rishi is back to sweeping the house and also churning out statistics. I'm getting fatigued with these numbers already, though this time a lot more people I know are a part of these figures. 

And yes, our neighboring elderly couple is back to their bickering best. 

Soliloquy

One should learn from me the art of breaking oneself to pieces shamelessly and mercilessly. Of convincing oneself that it's all worth it, while not at all convinced what it's worth. If only the shame I feel right now could be converted into anger, I would've been happy and proud of myself but all it does is becoming a simmering desperation. I marvel at this self of mine, how I could allow anyone to make me come to this shape. This cannot be me. 

Near, Far

On a regular day, you feel spoilt for choice when you see four medical stores in a lane and a hospital every kilometre. But when a pandemic hits like this, the kind of helplessness and inadequacy one feels is something else. You wish there was just one more medical store out there for you or another hospital nearby. 

This virus has the knack of making one feel terribly guilty. Because it is preventable, it keeps making you think you should've done something, a little more to make sure your dear one didn't catch it. 

High-pitched

I have a slew of leaves in the team - someone with a headache, another consulting a doctor for a sore throat, someone whose friend's mother passed away. The virus seems much more real this time. I don't dare tell anyone not to worry about the sore throat. 

Rishi was telling me about the miseries doctors are having to go through this season. We're being criminal in allowing Kumbh Melas and things to happen in such times. What incentive is it for anyone to pursue medicine? 

Around my in-laws' place things have become chaotic. People are testing positive in huge numbers, young and old are dying, there are serpentine queues at testing centres and brawls by people in panic. 

The Waiting Life

Now it's all about blood groups, friends, connections and phone calls. 

Lived Reality

So we've managed to get a hospital bed for my mother-in-law. But without ventilator. And the struggle for Remdesivir is real. P had got some for his friend only two days ago through his contacts but today it's out-of-stock. 

And the whole thing happened because my in-laws attended a religious gathering for a week. Without any caution. With the kind of psychological pressure people come under when it comes to religion, it's obvious that such gatherings should be banned in the first place. 

And my mother-in-law has tested positive through RT-PCR. Now it's anxious wait for a couple of more tests and hope that she's recovering. 

Caught off Guard

Situation in and around my in-laws' village is grim. They had largely escaped the first wave but this one has caught them totally clueless. Test positivity is very high, there are people down with fever in most houses and hardly any hospitals around in case of complications. The district centres are overrun with desperate patients in need of beds and being charged huge sums. Everyone is hoping just to come out of it with least damage, hoping it'll go away as swiftly as it came. 

Distanced

Had a good time at Lalbagh yesterday. On the way, we crossed my Tech. Park and I told Anu that it had been years since I visited it. It was an exaggeration but it sounded so believable. 

Home Truths

The virus has entered the family again. My eldest co-sister is down with it and so may be my mother-in-law. Situation in their village and around is very serious this time. It's obviously a different ball game. The next few days will be filled with tension. 

We're going to Lalbagh today. Today because we want to avoid possible weekend crowd. Because we don't know when we can go next. It's been more than a year already. 

My grandmother is recovering from surgery, don't know how my mother is doing, my sister-in-law and her husband, my brother-in-law and his wife are Covid positive, my sister's mother-in-law has undergone biopsy for a suspected malignancy in her uterus, my best friend is depressed and another is MIA. If I think of all this, a bowl of gulab jamuns looks weird, dosa seems tasteless and Lalbagh colourless. But then I guess there's all the more reason to do all these things now, with urgency. And yes, my mother-in-law has tested negative :-) 

Unstoppable

Maybe barring the first few months of the virus, construction activities have never stopped here. I've hardly had a quiet day in the last six months. As if it's a compulsion to keep constructing something or the other.

Temperatures are soaring. I can only reminisce about the good old summer showers of Bangalore. 

Walks of Life

Virus cases are increasing exponentially and everytime I go out I imagine it would be my last in a while. I went shopping for a fridge and a washing machine today and I would give anything to walk carefree on CMH Road again. Of course virus or otherwise the road is not fit for a walk right now; they are laying a concrete road and the sidewalks are mostly gone. But it was nice being there. 

Today feels like the time I woke up from a bad dream. I hope I can keep myself firmly in reality now on. There is no hope for me otherwise. 

My old parents are taking care of my grandmother in the hospital and it feels unfair. Someone like me should be doing it instead. But then I wonder if I'm just being selfish, that it would do me some good being there. 

For a Way Out

Long weekends are looking unnecessarily longer now. What am I to do in these three days? I guess I should treat tomorrow as a working day, finish cleaning the cupboards which is overdue and then maybe an outing to Lalbagh on Saturday or Sunday. It's like my mind is tricking me into thinking that I had a very eventful life before the pandemic and to become restless now.