Day 7- The disquiet returns

12.58 AM. The night is still. It is neither hot, nor cold. That odd, middling temperature, that is comfortless due to it's neutrality. The friendly, calming air currents of the last few days are conspicuous by their absence. The ceiling fan does try it's best, with it's familiar, cantankerous whirr. The mind tries to mirror...

Day 6- A tranquil apocalypse

Does't this feel like the proverbial calm before the storm? Do you sense the worse is yet to come. Like we are seated to watch a blockbuster movie, and the pre- movie trailers and adverts keep running on. If this is truly an apocalypse, it's seems quite tranquil at the moment no? I had a...

Day 5- Only?

Has it only been 5 days? Weekday morning rush and night- time scraps; memories of a couple of weeks ago, are paling already. Amazing, truly! Normal workdays for me, are days in which my time is not mine. I'm either sorting the kids out, or engaged completely and wholly with a patient- conscious ones in...

Day 4- Routines and rituals.

Purveyors of chaos often sustain life day-to-day by forcing themselves into routines and rituals. Routines by nature of their predictability are safe, controlled, becalming. Chaos and uncertainty can be exciting, thrilling, glamorous even. But it generally breeds anxiety. I truly learnt the practicality of setting routines only after I had my first child. Until then,...

Day 3- The new normal.

01:31 am. The kids were down by 10:30. I have been dilly- dallying, putting off coming to my desk. Faffing about on Netflix, Youtube, Prime, Hotstar; what have you. My pre- COVID life had minimal to no spare space for such luxuries. But the home quarantine/ lockdown life has it's unexpected perks. We have unsettlingly...

Day 2- The Needle and other inanities.

I'm often accused of verbosity. Of using thirty words when seven would suffice. Mea Culpa. But pray tell me, if a resource were infinite;  is there need to practice restraint. What has austerity of words ever accomplished. Silence can be a powerful weapon. And like any warrior of words, I know when to wield it....

Bengaluru 27.03.2020- Day 1

I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I sat at home for two straight days. "Sat at home" meaning not stepping out of the door. Not even after the birth of my children , did I do such a blasphemous thing (cue for all Indian aunties to raise their brows in...

There is no other life but this.

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this." -Henry David Thoreau These are peculiar times. We thought we were better, more advanced....

At the close, of another one.

The days are mostly long, but the weeks, months and years are astoundingly short. The little ones ain't so little anymore. Is that a proper wrinkle I see? The greys hairs are in greater attendance. Insurance companies put you in the next bracket. Involuntarily, I clutch harder at the grains of time, and all I'm...