Thursday, May 7, 2020

Corona Times ! (A facto-fiction tale!)

 

Corona Times !  (A facto-fiction tale!)

-          Umasree Raghunath

It is already 10 PM.   I have not finished all the work that I planned for the day and my dairy is staring at me with rage after having scribbled, ticked off the work that’s done and not having any lines to fill.   Working for UK from India and during their time zones…life of an IT professional is no different than that of mine.  

Inadvertently I turn back to catch up that smile of the man who generally gives me ‘all will be good’ assuring smile every time I get cooked up in a client call and need a break to sneak out from the laptop.   I only find a blank wall staring at me this time.  My favourite boss is missing.  I realize that I am not in office.   Working from home had been the norm for the last 45 days.   I don’t find the noise of Corona boys around who generally pull me to tea with some unhealthy snacking which I silently enjoy eating when ever I am stuck deep in work.   They are my colleagues whom I enjoy working with.    We share work,  lunch times and tea chats on anything from politics to passion.    We pull each other, we fight like teens,  we share support like matured adults, and we used to play together too.   Handling complex and critical projects always have its toll on the mental health and our boss used to pull us to meditation breaks as well!    The quick 20 minutes’ walk that he used to pull me to the DLF lawn was the only time for Vitamin D for me .   Can’t believe that it has been 45 days since I had my sunshine!   I am still surviving!

Everything suddenly changed.   I missed the hot conversations,  sharing lunch boxes, sitting by the big glass window to watch the commuting cars in and out of DLF after the long day before winding up.  My family has become over conscious to keep the home noise free.   In their sincere attempts to make my client calls go without any background noise.   My poor better half watches the TV most of the time on mute, not wanting to disturb my back to back conference calls.   He smiles at me when at times, I quickly try to comb my hair, wear that forgotten red lipstick lightly and get into a quick T-Shirt from the home pyjamas or nightie, knowing that someone is expecting me on a video call.   With the scorching summer on and continuous working from home, you tend to many times not get into the mood to dress up for work. 

My poor wardrobe that is untouched for the last month and a half gave me stern look.   I haven’t touched my nice collection of sarees for a long time now.   Forgot about those adoring Kanjeevarams and wanting to have the strings of jasmine to my hairdo!   There are no longer events happening, no motivational talks, no college lectures or social service in person.   Ironically, I forgot where I kept my Thali saradu too (The sacred wedding thread that most of the Married Indian women wear).    There are no one in the streets as I slip into my walking shoes and walk around the colony for a brief 45 minutes’ walk every morning and evening.  So, I don’t find a need to be ‘presentable’…just surviving will do!

Corona Boys!  My Favourite Girls!  Our trips and outings.   What makes me ponder are those everlasting memories.   Having moved out of the team just before the Corona craziness started to hinder the world’s regular rhythm of functions, I am no longer in the daily meetings with my old team with whom I worked for good number years of my life.   So, this feeling of isolation, being lonely and not having friends started to make me get drained and have sleepless nights.   I kept calling and messaging them and few responded.   But many didn’t.   I felt hurt first time.   I felt lonely.   But  work kept me going!

Its already 1 am…I am still trying to sleep.   I am missing the adrenaline of meeting people.  Getting dressed up,  having a full packed agenda and roaming around my city of Chennai.    Thoughts keep going like the trains that once whistled their way just 100 meters away from my home.  I go and spend good 1 hour in terrace watching the 7 layers of vegetation just 40 feet away from my home as the Met department forest area has a thick canopy of green layers covered with various types of birds.   And finding several Bats flying above our heads this season.   Are they telling us something?  I wonder. 

The WhatsApp groups have become unending garbage cans.   Like everyone wants to throw their garbage to the next compound wall.   Fantasy to senseless forwards irks me to get out of the groups.  But the fear of being left out stops me from doing so.   I wonder.  Are we really living in the real world?

Some simple happy morning messages from a best friend keeps me hopeful.   The fact that we are in their thoughts at least that moment when they send that message is what matters in these dire times.  Yet. It is all possible that they just automate and send to several of their friend list.  But why assume! Be happy with what you are getting!

I miss those small evening breaks where twin poetry used to flow and then came the Tamil poetry from a non-Tamil speaking poet!   Chai kings and that Sulaimani is dearly missed.   With it I missed the guru who used to have real candid conversations on anything from work, home, children, service, education, aspirations or the never-ending spiritual quest and talk on spirituality.   Misses are many and that is real!

HOWEVER

This Corona times also opened several things in life.   Hitherto unthought of.  We take so many things for granted.  And we complain about so many trivial things.  We take people for granted.  We take situations for granted.  Until we are into a totally different mind game and reality

Probably that where the mandala (45 days) of practice of doing something for around 40 days was put into place in our religious rituals.   Be it 40 days of Lent or 40 days of Ramadan fasting or 40 days of mandala puja for Hindus….what can be done for 21 days become a habit and what can be done for 40 days become a new normal.     To me this 45 day so far has become such a spiritual journey.

April came up with 30 days of 30 poems and this year, I chose Spiritual Journey and it was indeed an inward journey.   From being a social animal to be in isolation watching the same three faces every day, I evolved.   I did not change.  I started becoming a new me.   One who can start loving thyself!

This Corona times also showed me truly the people and things that really mattered.   It also showed me how horribly I kept spending all my time and energy on people who gave a damn to even check on how I was.   I did not overreact.  I did not unfriend them on social media.   I tried calling them myself and checking on their wellbeing.  Despite that, I found some cold shoulders.  Now I know who real friends are and who are not even worth to be virtual friends!  Thank you, Corona. You made my life better!

And come to the only thing I could do out of work!  Walk !   Walk Walk and Walk on the terrace, around the house, on the empty street in the colony and it became an addiction.   Switch on the Music Sree!  I tell myself the minute I wear my walking shoes.   The breath of fresh air.  The sounds of birds.  No trains running opposite my eyes or planes flying on my head.   And no opposite house thata (grandfather) who also functions as my add on CCTV for my home since my childhood after his son took them away to stay!   It not only reduces a bit of my body mass, but also strengthen my me time...

Next came the mindful consumption – the concept that is close to me and that I sing along.  We started being minimalist in everything around – right from going to one pot meals and using rations and every other thing only as needed and stopping all wastage

BINGO -  Came the bonus of life.  On 22 March on the day of Janata Curfew, my daughter declared to take over the kitchen .  After having spent 22 long years since I was 22,  I found a relief.  Not just that.   Chinese, Mexican, Thai and Italian cuisines came home eventually.   YouTube became a Master Class run show.   Dining table became an experiment paradise.   Despite the mouth-watering and beautifully plated dishes, I had to be conscious of my health and weight.   But what a blessing it was.   What an amazing sight to see both my daughter and husband sharing the kitchen responsibilities, baking, fermenting, cooking, cleaning and everything.

LOVE -   Sometimes distance proves the intensity of the love you share.  There are few people in life who means everything to me.  Despite the distance, time and circumstances, I realised that the test of times prove how skin deep is your love.  It is not rosy all the time.  Sharing the life’s realities is what makes relationships stronger and real.    Above all the emotional baggage that I struggled with;  one thing stood out perfectly.  Like a fountain of life!    SELF-LOVE!

Its already 2 am -  I took my phone and kept watch at those eyes that mattered to me the most.  Sometimes you don’t need the person sitting next to you holding hands.  Or in a hammock swaying in the moonlight with the breeze of the sea waves around and pushing you to place random kisses on his cheeks and lips.     You don’t need to have his legs on your laps rubbing against your chest and wanting you to pamper his feet listening to the songs that he dearly sing for you.   The lockdown can lock it all up.   There can be no outing, no romance, no long drives and no wearing that favourite red top and blue jeans with the ponytail.  But what can lock up your thoughts.    In no time, I swayed into his bosom feeling it all.      I quickly open my mail and scribble few lines that I want to tell him that moment.    I cry and cry looking into those eyes that spread love and gave it all.   Corona.  Thank you dear.  You gave me a way to cherish the relationship that I dream of in life.  Though it is not real.  It is not a fallacy. It is part of me and truly something that I can imagine being truth for ever and live on!

I was looking at my phone, wanting to call someone.  Its already past 2.30 am.   Probably I can only call someone on the other side of the world.   USA numbers raising and UK is following suite.  Mind raced behind the great times in Detroit and Los Angeles and couple of medical frontline friends who gave a lot of love in these 2 cities.  And then the Niagara Falls.  The beauty of the beasty falls on the Canada side that I loved watching with my best friends and family.  The world suddenly changed.   I don’t know when we will get to travel that far again.   I remember driving down to Halifax Titanic Graveyard when I was in Nova Scotia.   Probably, next time when we travel across the world, we may be having several of Corona Cemeteries and Memorials world over.  We are becoming part of the World tragic history that succumbed several souls at a time.  What an unfortunate year 2020 had been.

Again HOWEVER,

The environment world over got to breathe on its own.  Without the vehicles plying all around making noisy sounds and polluting the Planet Earth.   I remember the beautiful Mackinaw Islands.  Probably how fortunate it would be to visit them now.  And then comes my abode of peace. My destination unparalleled.    Rishikesh.   My friend who went in March as a priest to perform Rudra Puja for Lord Shiva got stuck with 30 other Hindu Priests in Uttarakhand.  Locked up in Rishikesh on the banks of Ganges for full 45 days.   What a blessing it must be.   I  know he would miss his family, routine and his work in Chennai.  But I am sure being in Rishikesh for this long is something he would not get it again in life.  I wish I was there.  In the abode of eternal peace on Earth!

Corona not only gave the world a realization that simple living is possible. It also showed the world that no matter what. Our physical body is the vehicle of the soul and we better respect it, stop abusing it and build immunity to fight any damn odds in life.  The mental strength that’s needed to survive the kind of situations we were pushed in is also an eyeopener. Corona decluttered not only my life, relationships and friends, it cleared lot of things in my head.  Sometimes, we need occasionally the visit of this generous virus that had killed all the barriers of differences in terms of caste, creed, rich or poor, prince or a pauper, man or a woman, aged or young.  It just went ahead with one rhythm of cleansing the Earth in its own way

Its 3 am.  My eyes are now getting strained.   Sleep is not happening yet.    Thoughts are not stopping though.   This gentle summer breeze of the midnight is touching my soul.   I am awakened to a new sense of belonging.  I want that to be serene and real.  I turn to my side to pause a moment and smile at the happy snoring and peacefully sleeping soul next to me.  How lucky you should be if you can catch up sleep within few minutes of hitting the bed.   I envy him all the time for that.   I feel so naughty to wake him to make me a midnight coffee.   He makes the best coffee at home.  I want to have that damn nutty Dairy Milk, but too lazy to go to the fridge to grab one.   

My mind goes back to the man of my dreams.   This magical man keeps coming to disturb my sleep every night.  I almost live a parallel life with him.  This invisible soul stirs me up.   Goes down my neck and touches my chest.   He makes my stomach churn in pain longing for him.  Wish I can give him a name.  A shape and form.   A relationship. 

You may ask, why Sree?  You have a handsome and the most caring husband in the world.  A beautiful family.   A wonderful life.  Why mess it up!   Who said I mess it up!    I am living in my own fantasy world of surreal supreme belonging and what is wrong in it.   This belonging is to the soul.  The longing is for that body.    The ego is that I have him in all my thoughts.   Endless bounty of happiness.    An endearing bliss of solitude.   That is all mine.   I write long poems in praise of his supreme self .  I write long letters of love that I keep on whispering every night.   I want to surrender to his feat and in his love that is eternal.  His wish is my command!

The real man next to me gets disturbed with the light of my phone.  He gently persuades me to sleep.   He gets up and goes to the washroom and watches the time.  ‘What are you doing till 3 am?’.  ‘Sleep now’.  He gently tells me again.  I nod to him

Turns back to my side pillow that I cling on to.  Tears roll down.  How will I make him understand that I need the man who is crazily refusing to leave my thoughts.  I am talking to him for hours.  That’s making my soul fulfil in its brilliant happiness.   I want to embrace him.  I want him to flow his life inside me.  I want his hands to hold my face and promise me that he will never leave me.  I want him to touch me and assure me that he will love me like no one else will do.  I wish he makes me unite with him deeply that no thing in the world can part us ever!

Sree!  Stop this now!  I can hear you yelling at me now.  Ok.. Ok…I will tell you the truth.    The truth of who this intruder is!   No..No..I am not hallucinating.  I am not dreaming.  I am just finding him within me.  I am discovering myself with him every passing day. I am enjoying my spiritual search with him.  I am embracing a divine calling with his existence in my life.  This is supreme awakening.  This is real.  This is love.  This is not fallacy.  This is the only truth.

He is my soul.  He is my soulmate.  He is my everything.   He is my Shivaya.  The life within!