Easter Covid 14

For her advent began when she started shortlisting dress patterns. At least 40 days before Christmas.
So that the whole process of selecting the pattern, estimating the material quantity, buttons and trials was not hurried.
After all the journey is the destination.

Even regular Sunday morning mass dictated that fashion choices be made. Colours that suited her had to be balanced  with 
the banishment of red for lent. With  shoes that hadn’t been ruined trying to catch the 8.10 Churchgate fast. 

Luckily she’d bought the material for her Easter dress before the lockdown. The darn tailors shop was still shut.
No way  he could cut, stitch and deliver in the time left. At the rate things were going she’d be all dressed up and nowhere to
go even if she had the dress. 

Protective face masks were the order of the day. The front line health care workers needed them the most.
But they were in short supply.The tulle she had  gave the masks that designer edge. The lady doctors loved them. 

She was on time for  the Easter vigil. Had never paid more attention. She didn’t have to worry about what Sandra or Mary or
Perpetua were wearing. She didn’t have to worry about the mud from the dusty ground spoiling her shoes.
Or whether the  roast chicken for the Easter lunch would be as perfect as it always was. Wheter the Easter eggs she had
ordered were full almonds and no peanut dilution. She did worry about wheter they would reach her.

She renounced Satan and all his evil ways. Lit the Easter candle off the kitchen stove. 

Easter spirit as dead as the saviour on the cross. Especially  with the fourth floor having two positive cases.
There was a tomb like silence in the building. 

When they recovered and came home it was a little better. She experienced the joy of the resurection. First time ever.
Her report and everyone else's in the building was negative ten days later.

Lucky for some. Covid 13

His bike defined him. A cherry red Harley Davidson. 1600 cc. People heard the thump and turned around. They saw the bike and craned their necks to follow him. If there was anything the bike lacked he made up for in gear. His leather jacket. LED trim on the gaurds. 

His helmet cost more than a brand new Hero Honda. Shumacher used the same brand. If it was good enough for Michael it was even better for him. The kids in the building were forbidden to touch it. No vroom vroom pretending to ride games on this bike. The watchmen cleant it, but under his supervision. 

Jo Boy ? Yes the guy with the red Harley. Not Jo Boy, Mary and Franks son. Or Sandra’s brother, or the guy who worked in the Customs. 

Curfews and compulsory social isolation destroyed the best laid plans of mice and men. No bike rides. Bike rides? He was lucky he could still walk up and down his road. 

The kid on the second floor was a medical intern. Worked in town at Nair hospital. Bandra to Nair hospital was two bus trips and one local train trip away. One way. The trains had stopped. Too risky. Social distancing in a Mumbai compartment was .75 inches on a good day. Taxi drivers had abandoned hearth and home aka their cab to head back to UP or Bihar or Chattisgarh or wherever their long journey had brought them from. 

So he loaned him his bike. What the hell, it was just sitting there. 

He was pointed out now. 

“That’s the guy who had loaned out his Harley.”

 “29 lakh bike and he gave it to that doctor kid to get to the hospital everyday. “

A week later he even gave the kid his helmet. 

Covid 12

She came in every day. Dusting, sweeping, mopping , and cooking. When the youngest came back from school with a head full of lice she fine combed them out. She loaded up their washing machine. Whites on Wednesdays and Fridays. Everything else Monday and Saturday. She handwashed their delicates. The machine would spoil the elastic or rip the lace. Her chappatis were rounder than a full moon.

 She’d even learned how to make Sorpotel and fugias. So for feast days she was called in for extra duty. Had to stay late after the guests left to wash up. Washed the windows before Christmas and brassoed the front door latch and plant holders before Easter and Christmas.

There was a police order that wearing masks outside was compulsory. Now they wanted her to wear a mask. Had to be on before she entered and stay on. 

Ok. But they should wear masks too. Wasn’t their inside her outside ?

Covid 11

He was enjoying this. He’d never slept in a bed before. Always on the floor. With a bedroll, which was rolled away every morning to make place for the day. 

Along with everyone else’s bedding. Along came Corona and of course he was hit. Along with everyone else in the hut. They shared everything. The communal drinking vatee on the matka. The old dalda tin for the toilet. 

It took some getting used too. Sleeping on a platform 3 feet above the ground. He couldn’t move too much. Not with tubes going into him. Tubes coming out of him. Bags to see his fluid intake and output. Blood samples and urine samples. He could grow used to this. This food being brought to him in large quantities. This bed that propped into a chair. 

The tubes  came off as he got better. The doctor saab said he was jawan. That God had spared him. Soon the tubes came off. 

He rolled off the bed in his sleep. That hurt. He was discharged immediately. The doctor saab said that if he had the energy to roll off his bed he was well enough to go home.

Dreaming in the Times of Covid 10

Just outside the school gate stood the bora walla. Loosely named. Because the seasons dictated what he had for sale. The school authorities knew that his hygiene standards were questionable. As were the sources of his supply. Or maybe they were just caving to the canteen operator who wanted his monopoly maintained. Monopoly on the forever hungry stomachs of a whole school.

The borawalla had a pile of multihued boras. Which he sold by the cone. He’d show  up with paper cones ready. Filled and capped to prevent accidental slippage. Also to hide a few rotten boras. Discerning cutomers had no time to protest. Everything had to be transacted thru a locked grille gate. Quickly. A few hundred boys clamouring at the gates like lions at feeding time in the zoo. It was a fifteen minute short break. You had to have the correct change at the ready. He took the money before parting with his boras. 

That was SOP with whatever was on his cart. Though with different products the customization changed. The guava tranactions were more intense. Selection. Slicing. Then the decision wheter you wanted salt or salt and chilli powder, or just chilli powder. His pricing for gauvas was more random. Only because of the randomness of a ripe gauvas size. The same applied to Kairis. Raw green mango whose sourness made you close your eyes and wince. But not as wince worthy as his Bimlees or Imlees. Groundnuts were standardized. A cone of ground nuts is a cone of groundnuts. Or water chestnuts split in half. Which for some unfathomable reason was always accompanied by smoking aggarbattis. If it was to keep the flies away, they did’nt.  Come the monsoon he had butta. Pre roasted for quick dispensation. But lime , chilly powder, salt? . A given  Which self respecting school boy would even think of having a butta  which hadn’t been rubbed down with all of the above. 

Did call him the butta walla, or the kairi wala or the tamrind walla ? It was always the borawalla. Whom we were warned against by home and state to have no truck with. On pain of a slow lingering death.

Love in the times of Covid 9

She was always well turned out. Clothes from Troy or Wendell. Hair by Toni and Guy. M.A.C make up. Jimmy Choo’s. Victoria’s shh… . Olive for birthday party dinners. Bombay Canteen if it was lunch. 

She made page 3 at least once a month. If she didn’t her publicist got hell. The last time page 3 didn’t see her for a month she changed her PR agency. So what if the write up about the party cost more than the party. 

If you got it flaunt it. And if you don’t got it , pretend.

She’d air kissed her way through demonetization, the bomb blasts and the riots and the Ambani wedding.  But Covid  was proving a harder nut to crack.

The PR agencies photographer couldn’t come to Pali Hill from Dombivli. Like it was the moon ?

So she was reduced to selfies. Times Now wanted them in Hi Res. 

“Darling we have to keep an eye on the money. The factory is shut and the workers need money for food.”

‘Lakme. You gotta be kidding me ? Let them eat cake.’

Positive ? Ok . Can I have a super deluxe room ?

NO!

Ward!

Ward?

I’d rather die than be in ward. 

So she did. She didn't make page 23.

Covid 8

She was tired. Tired of hearing clichés. The one she liked to hate the most was when the going gets tough… That was just the biggie. The others said have faith in God. His eye is on the sparrow. Whatever will be will be. Blah blah blah. None of it helped, while she got mired deeper in doubt everyday.  Whether the governmnet would be able to keep the country together ? Whether her exams which had already been postponed for a week, a month, a quarter would ever happen. Would she ever graduate ? If she did what then? In a post Covid world with just about everything restricted ? Her dreams to go to the US for a Masters seemed like a hallucination.

 She’d had it all chalked out. Graduate . Work for a year or two. Post grad abroad. Marriage. A family. She’d keep working. Kids. Travel to Europe on immersive vacations every year. Grand kids. She’d spoil her grandchildren rotten. She’d fadeaway in a rocking chair, knitting socks when she was 80 plus. 

That pesky neighbor refused to take no for an answer. So there she was with them making masks for slum dwellers. Even before they finished that, vermiculture was under discussion. Garbage collection was as much in the past as Mohenjodaro. So she helped build the pit. They had sessions for everyone. How and what went where. Pesky neighbor wanted to have a soup dispensing station at the society gate. For anyone who couldn’t get a meal. She volunteered for the 7-8 pm shift. An old uncle wanted help. Her chemistry background would maybe help in his distillation. Liquor shops were going the same Mohenjodaro route. He claimed he’d never ever had such a smooth rich flavourful full bodied peg. 

The second round of mask production was getting underway. The kids of the colony needed to be kept up to date with their maths and english and science. The next road wanted her expertise for their vermiculture. 

Her college wrote to say that she could complete her course online. She didn’t have the time.

Love in the times of Covid 7

 Every evening at the bar. DSP large with soda. A bowl of monkey nuts on the side. Though he had a repeat every day, the waiter would still ask him.

He had grown up happy. In a big house with a small family. Daddy, Mummy and him. Well to do. Car, T.V., telephone. Daddy was the first to go. He had just finished college. But Mummy requested him not to start working immediately. 

They had to put Daddy’s papers in order. Bank accounts, LIC, UTI. Transfer the telephone to Mummys name. Salcette society share certificate. Even the name for the grave ownership. It was tedious work. And slow. Forms to be filled out in triplicate. The notary called to wish him a happy Christmas . And Easter. And Divali. And Christmas. Then Mummy asked him to get the house repairs done. With a job who would supervise the work ? Then she had a fall. If he left her alone in the house with the servants they’d steal them blind. 

The proposals kept coming. He was never sure if it was or the house or for him. Pretty girls, plain girls, ugly girls. Piano LTCL, ATCL and BEd graduates. Mangloreans, East Indians and Goans. Even one Anglo Indian.  He approved Mummy didn’t. Mummy approved, he didn’t. 

And so it went till Mummy died. That’s when he started going to the gym bar every evening. Keeping a kitchen running for one person was a waste. So after his two large DSP’s he’d study the menu. Came back to Beef chilly fry and dal with chappatis every night. A parcel of fish curry rice for tomorrows lunch. The top woman would make his breakfast tea and porridge. 

The proposals were now issueless widows and innocent divorcees. But Jo boy who sometimes joined him at the bar laughed. Its bad luck to marry a widow. Divorcee. Theres no smoke without a fire.

He finally sold the house. Two flats and more crores than he could spend in three lifetimes. One flat was just full of all the extra furniture from the bungalow.

Lockdown ? Breakfast was marie bisucits and tetra pak milk. Damn. He’d burnt the maggi noodles again.

Covid 6

She had German measles in her second trimester. The doctor warned her that there was a good chance the baby would be compromised. Good chance ? She thought. That’s a bad chance. It was . But they found that out later. That this perfect baby girl with ten twinkling fingers and ten twinkling toes was deaf. 

So she quit her job. Resigned from the ladies sodality. From the entertainment committee. From anything that took her away from her baby. She put her into regular school. What took the other kids five minutes would take her baby  twenty. But her lip reading was getting better by the day. When she had to start on Hindi and Marathi it was back to square one. But she made it. Slowly.

She learnt painting and computers. She dated. She got married and had her own children. Two perfect little beings. Who grew up and got married. Went off to start lives of their own. 

Along came Covid . Face masks mandatory. Lip reading ? Back to square one.

Love in the times of Covid 5

They were a close knit society. The door  of every house open. Wheter you had lunch at your’s  or any of the other dining  tables in the building , it was home.

When Jo-Boy got that promotion, the congratulations message on the notice board let her know before he could. When tv’s first came around they had all chipped in and bought one. Every evening they would get together in the lobby for first, the rosary, then tv. The building that prays together stays together they said, only half jokingly.

They’d gone thru the days of the blackouts of the Indo Pak war, thru the riots, thru the floods, thru the bomb blasts, thru Bombay, Bharat and Mumbai bandhs. They’d  get thru this too.

 Until Aunty K got a fever. Social distancing was 6 ft. As soon as they rang the bell they’d take a few paces back. She almost drowned in the chicken soup they flooded her with. Until chicken was banned with a H1N1 scare. Mutton was almost unavailable. When it was available it was so expensive. What they could,they sent over in old Jimmies Chinese takeaway dabhas. Aunty K didn’ have to bother about returning those. The virus could live on plastic for 3 days they’d been told. 

When her cough started,the soup stopped. Too dangerous, waiting at her door. Her son told them the fever had started. At the evening rosary they dedicated the first decade for her speedy recovery. The last four for their well being. Saying a rosary with the new social distancing being 15 feet was a problem. Especially if you were old and hard of hearing. The kissing of the statue après rosary had long ceased. They asked Ks son to keep his windows closed.

“ But it’s so hot!”

The virus could stay in the air for 6 hours and their windows were above, below and on either side of Aunty K’s.

Either the soup and / or  the prayers worked. The fever went away. The cough vanished. They all had to be tested. All clear. Except Aunty Ks son. 

A carrier. No symptoms. He could never open his windows again. 

Covid 4. Be careful...what you wish for.

It was a match made in heaven. She thanked the gods for it. Every day. While she prayed for a child. He was an atheist. God, he said had nothing to do with anything. 

And unto them a child was born. Of course he needed a black spot put on his cheek. To mar his perfection and keep the evil eye at bay. She thanked the gods for him and prayed for his good health. That he would stand first in class. He did. Regularly. She thanked the Gods. While she prayed he would get into medicine. If he did’nt, then at least engineering. The Gods smiled on her and him. 

Those long hours in Emergency were trying. She prayed that he would be done with them soon. He wanted to go to the states for an MD. 

Suddenly Emergency was flooded. Flooded with people who came in with a fever and a cough. And left in a hearse.  

She prayed that God would keep him safe. He didn’t.

Love in the times of Covid 3

She loved tradition. Even as a little girl. Making kulkuls on the lead up to Christmas. Midnight mass. Opening the presents when they got back. Of rosaries in the month of May at the grotto. The tradition of only Dad being allowed to ignite the rockets for Divali. Sparklers and snakes she was allowed to light. 

Making coconut leaf crosses for Palm Sunday. Polishing the brasswear with torn up old shirts. Of moulding marzipan Easter bunnies and settling them in crepe paper fields. Handpainting dried out eggshells. The Easter vigil and making sure the hot candle wax didn’t burn you while you renounced Lucifer and everything he stood for. 

She loved the solemnity of a funeral cortege. The slow march of mourners with a rosary that ended at the front at least five minutes before the tail enders caught up. The candles and crucifix lead procession to the grave. The ritual of the eldest covering the face of the deceased.The dispensation of rose petals. Their gentle showering down on the lowered coffin.

So many years. She’d seen it all. Many times over. Now she didn’t walk with the cortege. At  least the bus allowed her to get there before the seven day mass. She tried to get into the condolence line early. Too long a line and she might need a toilet before she reached  the family. 

A fever. A dry cough. A wheeze and she was gone.

No more than 20 persons at the funeral. Sorry. Police orders.

 Closed coffin. Health department orders. 

Grave ? Sorry all the labour have gone back to Bihar. 

Being the pragmatist she was she would have said “I’m lucky I could attend my own cremation”.

Love In the times of Covid 2

 She could go out now. Without holding her hand over her mouth. Her hare lip. Which polite people pretended wasn’t there Which cruel people stared at pointedly. And children pointed out to their friends. The N-52 facemask was perfect. All it let you see of her were her eyes. Twinkling and luminous. She found the funny side of things easily. 

Day 1 Recommended Social distancing  6 ft. The line at the bania shop distancing 2 ft.

‘ Excuse me, it’s your turn’

Day 4  hi I’m Al. 

Day 7  I’m Sam

Day 9    The conversation so quickly went to isolation, lockdown, 9 minutes of black   out, 

Day 12  Zoom date with virtual background Juhu beach.

Day 13  FB friends.

Day 14  No Pics of you in photos?. I sent you mine.

               No. Im a very private person. You’re very good looking. Model typeJ

Day 15  Zoom date with virtual background Elephanta Island.

Day 16 Al What ?

Just Al. Sam what ?

Just Sam.

Day 16.5  Zoom date with virtual background Gulmarg.

Day 16.51- 16.59 My sister says I’m using all the bandwidth J

Day 17- Day 117 . Dreams , hopes, aspirations.

Day 118 Marry me Sam ?

                You don’t even know my name Al. Al? You must be Christian.

                No, Full form Ali.

Day 119. Salaam Ale Kum  Al. Its Sameera.

Day 120 Social isolation lifted. 

                He gently traced her hare lip with his finger. 

                Marry me ?

Love in the times of Covid 1

The Capulets and Montagues had nothing on them. An enimity that went back 40 years. Over an ill matched romance ? A business rivalry ? A joint pursual of Miss September Gardens ? If only . It all started over the mango tree. When it grew so big that the spread of its branches overran the boundary wall. When a branch grows it puts out leaves, then flowers . Flowers that turned into the most juicy alphonsos this side of anywhere. But they were then good neighbours. So the mangoes were harvested and what grew on this side of the wall stayed on this side of the wall and what did’nt, did’nt. They bought a new car. Maruti 800. Luxury. No more BEST bus queues. No more walking to the Mount. The best place to park it was in the shade of the mango tree. But the leaves and the crows were a problem. So they bought a net for the leaves and a catapult for the crows. Perfect. Until the monsoon came and with a huff and a puff, a big branch of the mango tree came crashing down. Taking with it, net, windscreen glass and one side mirror. Scarring for life the roof top and bonnet.
C “I told them to trim their tree before the monsoon”
M “Serves them right. Showing off with a new car”
C “Anyway its their tree that fell on our car so they should pay for the repairs.”
M “ when mangoes were falling it was theirs, when trees are falling its ours? Ha !”
 And so it went. They didn’t send each other Christmas sweets that year. Or the next. Or ever. The youngest had her first communion party. There was an anonymous police complaint about the noise. The over hanging branches were chopped every year. Brutally. When they went on holiday, plants stayed unwatered and goldfish died. The plants too. Going for evening mass instead of morning eliminated the need to cross the road. Which eliminated the need to say Good Morning. Or looking left and walking straight. Grocery shopping was a problem. Get a rickshaw. Go to Shakari Bandar. Provisions for a week could not fit into one bag. Four bag two trips from dispatch counter to rickshaw line. One eye on the richshaw walla to ensure he doesn’t drive of with second lot while you unload the first lot. Anyways that’s to Corona rickshaws were off the road. A twenty year old with four bags is a problem. A sixty year old with four bags is a two man project.
 “ Let me help you Aunty “
“Thank you Baba”
“I’ll drop you home aunty ?”
“Sorry I cant hear too well thru this face mask. So much trouble for you”
“St. Leos Road ?”
“I’m on St. Leos Road too.”
“This house? “
“Say hello to your Mum and Dad baba. Tell them to be careful . These are dangerous times.”
“Will do Aunty and if you need anything just shout over the wall.”