A day at home March 28th 2020

These are the days of pandemic ..the much heard & talked about Corona virus. Infact even when its silent everywhere and I am not with my handphone, my mind keeps chattering "corona virus, corona virus.." I wonder if there is anything else apart from this in this world. 

Well we need to go about the business of our daily lives, which has altered quite a bit. I have to get my course materials ready to be delivered online and therefore have to become more techsavvy. So there is plenty to learn each day.

Then the house has become more populated with family members getting in the way of each other. I need to schedule my class to be delivered from home, while Raja has to attend office work from home. Akanksha flits and floats in between worried about her article thats overdue. Earlier this morning was an avoidable altercation with Pavithra on coffee making amidst a sudden scare at the sight of an ambulance & police car in the opposite building.

My venous insufficiency (caused due to varicose veins) flared up in the midst of this disturbance to routine. Observe your mind state, advises my meditation guru. Yes, I have become a little more reactive than usual and maybe it is finding its outlet in dryness/oozing feet which feel like burning pin pricks now and then.

Raja offers to cook pulao for lunch and I look gratefully at him as I feel a spike of discomfort from my foot. He goes to the kitchen and asks .. Do you think I can do a round of laundry first? I say Ok . Minutes later he comes to show me the lint collected in the lint catcher of the machine. On another reactive day, I would have interepreted this as his criticism of my housekeeping skills..but not today. I just nodded my head in acknowledgement.

After a while he wanted cinnamon sticks.. so I went in to give it to him, then bay leaf. I had kept a couple of pieces in my easy to access masala box, so I told him where he could find it. But he was disappointed with the quantity. So I directed him to the fridge which had a full packet of them. Then he started a conversation of whether bay leaf had any aroma worth talking about.

Finally came the call for basmati rice! Where is it? The usual box in which it is kept was empty & he was now worried. Well there was enough in the box next to the usual basmati box but ofcourse, it required another trip to the kitchen by me to help him find it.

Meanwhile someone messages me about the all time high deaths in Italy. Well we all need to go sometime, somehow. I gaze at some of my artwork and recall the moments of joy they gave me as I was making them and as they do now adorning parts of my house.

This is why we need art. The patience we develop, the spaces of unhurriedness, the imperfections that teach you some lessons and the beauty that emanates, making life worthwhile. I settle down on my couch with my feet elevated to ease the discomfort to write my tale of today.