Yet another March to remember

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Oh Lord !! What a month it has been. Again another March where all our plans have been toppled by this unprecedented pandemic which has gripped the entire world. Exactly after a year writing about Amma's hospital stint around the same time of 2019, here I am in April 1st 2020, at the 8th day of this country wide lockdown washing my hands often enough which has literally cracked my skin, thankfully bereft of reasons to step out and wondering how long are we going to have to keep this way up with closed schools, working from home, one meter personal space and empty roads. We have been working from home since 19th and had my friends visited me on 20th midnight with my birthday cake and had a memorable 20-30 minutes of celebrations and I am absolutely grateful to have them. For a person like me, it is the moments like this that matters and I am happy that i spent my 31st birthday with my loved ones cooking pav bhaji for dinner .The last time I went out was on 21st to get the essential vegetables a day before Janta Curfew. And there after we have been homebound.

Life suddenly took a turn  for all of us and we are literally living through history and is difficult for us to sink in. Most of the colleagues, I speak to are literally bored staying home and working from home with no real physical contacts other than their immediate family members. People are awfully upset with the rising number of positive cases and adding to the distress is the proliferation of WhatsApp messages, many of them forwarded even without checking their credibility. Thankfully I have stopped using Facebook a long back, uninstalled Instagram as soon as I started working from home to avoid distractions and I have stopped reading the long messages and have abstained from watching any forwarded videos, not even the funny baby videos. I am trying to distract myself from this mayhem more by reducing the number of times I check the news. It is quite important to sane during these harrowing times. So I am just being thankful for what I have and taking moments to feel how blessed I am .

·        My family, friends and colleagues are staying safe and doing good.

·         I stay in a comfortable home and we have enough food for now, medicines for the parents and a sweet toddler who is happily eating whatever we cook.

·         Life without help is difficult. But I am able to cope with my household tasks with support from my in-laws. We cook and clean together before I start my office work.

·         We are well connected with close friends and family. Thanks to Internet and the many communication media.

·         I am occupied with household chores, cooking, study/games with R, my office work and blessed feeling that I am not bored at all.

·         I am sleeping few extra hours and it rejuvenates me.

·         I am living one day at a time -no hurry-worries, but definitely learning and growing wiser.

·         I and M are working together in a room with no conflicts or arguments. The cherry on the cake is how well R lets us work respecting our work ,occasionally peeping in to say a Hello or Bye which instantly lightens the serious work mood and bring out a smile on both of us.

·         Absolutely grateful to work for a company that cares for the employees and is providing ample resources to cope-up with it.

Of course I miss my work-out sessions or a walk in the garden, but I have enough chores that keep me physically active now. To be true, I am not sure when I will meet our friends or my colleagues in real-time. But even after the lock-down I suspect if I will step out of my home till May. I feel it is better to be safe than sorry. I like to believe this as a once-in-a-lifetime event and want this phase to pass soon. It aches my heart to know that worldwide this pandemic has affected millions, claiming many lives, impacting the businesses, damaging the share markets and bringing the world to events that were not foreseen. Irrespective of race,

religion, caste or ethnicity, the world is fighting this common enemy and I hope this all recedes soon and we will have peace.

Loka Samstha Sukhino Bhavantu !!!