by Laila Tyabji
It’s okay to not feel okay. In this 11th week of limbo, the time is coming close when we will be kicked outdoors and told to fend for ourselves as best we can. Divided between anxiety dreams, sweeping/swabbing, and endless Zoom conferences, it’s natural to feel a bit wobbly and vulnerable. The other day I had a huge fight with my daughter (over something incredibly trivial), had a total melt down, and ended up crying buckets - something I haven’t done for years. Then grabbed a scissors and chopped off my hair and ended up feeling much better!
Meanwhile hens in Malapurram, Kerala laid eggs with bright green yolks, and having managed to alienate our once close ally and neighbour Nepal, we now have 5000 Chinese digging in on our Ladakh border. A London court ordered Anil Ambani to pay up USD 717 million to Chinese banks within 21 days. If he doesn't pay, the Chinese can ask Interpol to arrest him as a fugitive. (Is this a final come-uppance or just another act in the play?) NDTV announced that “people celebrated Eid Mubarak...” not realising Mubarak is a greeting not a day, and the Israeli PM is (finally) being tried for corruption. America burned as angry crowds mourned the killing of George Floyd, while Brazil introduced 5 minute Drive-Thru marriages, and a black bear wandered the streets of Fort Wyatt in Florida, eventually being entrapped with doughnuts. (Its not clear whether they were chocolate-coated or merely sprinkled with sugar). Mrs P Susheela deposited One Husband and Five Hundred Rupees in her Indian Overseas Bank account, and the Bank accepted and stamped her receipt.
It was a strangely quiet Eid, marked by the Sikh community sanitising Jama Masjid for the Eid namaz, showing once again how wonderful they are.
I never realised I’d miss people so much.
Special Shramik trains started taking the labour home at long last, but somehow mislaid their way. A train from Mumbai to Gorakhpur in UP went via Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal taking 60 hours instead of scheduled 25 with only a slice of bread and a lone green chilly as food. Another left Gujarat for Bihar and landed up in Karnataka; the food offered there was packets of dry bhel. A total of 40 trains “lost their way” wandering the country at random. 80 passengers died. It was supposed to be free, but actually people paid. As Justice Madan Lokur said, “If a grading is to be given, it deserves an F.”
In contrast, a millionaire hired a virus-free 180 seat A320 aircraft to fly his daughter, her two kids and a maid back from Bhopal to Delhi, at a cost of approximately 18 lakhs.
Commercial airlines too began flying, though confusions led to 630 flights being cancelled in just the first 24 hours, much to the frustration of all-night queues with confirmed tickets, waiting to enter the airport. (Possibly all this is to reconcile the rest of us to staying at home).
Have we learnt anything in these COVID months, apart from sneezing into our elbows?
Actually elbows have turned out to have multiple unsuspected uses apart from being a receptacle for our sneezes - they can open and close taps, turn on switches, summon lifts, be a substitute for a handshake when a Namaste seems too formal.
In Meerut, a troop of monkeys attacked a lab technician and ran away with the Covid tests samples he was carrying. They sat on trees, happily gnawing the collection kits and gloves, leading to fears of further spreading of infection. Can one actually eat the Corona virus? Nobody really knows.
It’s important not to get overexcited by the flattering reactions of friends and followers to ones posts. A good way to preserve a balance is to see the comments of others who’ve shared it. That’s where the naysayers can be found. Loved this comment on my last weeks post. “Nothing wrong with the word 'woke'. Just an old person rant but nicely written. Meh....”
Kate Middleton is so blandly picture perfect, it’s good to know she has an iffy cocaine-snorting uncle who named his villa in Ibiza La Maison de Bang Bang.
Unemployment was at 7% in March; it’s now estimated at over 27%. 12 crore Indians lost jobs last month.
And then the locusts came. The statistics are scary. Swarms, sometimes 17 km in length, can cover up to 150 km a day. One square kilometer of locust swarm contains between 40 million and 80 million locust adults and can eat as much food as 35,000 people in a day. How do you stop them? Bang thaalis (does that sound familiar?). The Chinese put their faith in ducks who can eat 200 locusts a day (a chicken can apparently only intake 75).
A phrase on email and SMS which irrationally irritates me, though it’s intention is the opposite, is - “a gentle reminder” . I always want to grind my teeth and growl, “What makes this “a gentle” reminder compared to an ordinary one?”
An Australian man had an unusual fantasy: unknown men breaking into his bedroom and stroking his naked body with a broom. He was willing to pay 5000 dollars for someone to do it. Unfortunately after confirming the deal he moved house and forgot to tell them. So the men broke into his old house, encountered a new tenant - and got arrested. For some reason they’d brought not only a broom but machetes.
The BJP has been celebrating Modi's 6 years in office. It's a big day.
India now has the highest unemployment rate in 45 years, the lowest GDP since 2000, the highest income inequality in 80 years, Asia's worst performing currency, a 23% rise in poverty. Its the world's third worst country in environment protection, is 102nd out of 117 countries in the Global Hunger index, (behind Pakistan,Bangladesh and Nepal) and is the proud possessor of 22 out of the 30 most polluted cities in the world. Truly “a golden chapter” as the PM said last year.
In the Renaissance, it was widely believed that weasels conceived through their ears and gave birth through their mouth. Given the apparent deafness of our leadership, and the strange utterances that emerge from their lips, I presume their ears and mouths, like the weasels, are occupied with some other preoccupying activity.
People remark that only 3,14,687 people died of Corona virus in the last 3 months while 11,67,711 died of Cancer. For some reason, this is supposed to be cheering.
Despite many friendly souls urging one on, lockdown is not the right frame of mind in which to write a book. Lemon meringue pie is about as creative as it gets.
Sleepless? Try and find a rhyme for – orange – silver - purple - months.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UMMnews.
