Category: COVID-19
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COVID-19 Diaries: Direct Hit
Over the weeks, I have mused countless times about how much the pandemic occupies my thoughts. I have imagined in vivid detail what the virus does and can do to our bodies. I have feared that someone dear to me might be affected. Amma spiked a fever ten days ago. A mild fever she said.…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Jugaad
I am in the bedroom browsing through my phone when I hear Laddu’s voice. “Mommy, my glasses broke.” It takes a minute to register. “What do you mean broke? Broke?” The questions swirled. How? When? Who? In the end, I inspected the glasses, pronounced it dead. The lack of emotion, the lack of panic. The…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Good Days. Bad Days.
Yesterday was a bad day. It also was a good day. I started the day with excitement. I woke up brimming with ideas for book promotion. My brain was on overdrive, making lists, thinking of ways to promote the book. I logged into work and diligently prepared for a presentation in the afternoon. I had…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Wear Those Dresses
I am speaking on a work call, my palms animated as I to explain my position when I spy Laddu outside my study door. Beyond the mullioned door, she mimes something my preoccupied brain fails to comprehend. I shoo her away and adjust focus back to the matter on hand. The call ends and Laddu…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Openness When Confronting Mortality
My watch buzzes and a familiar name pops up. My smile is huge, stretching from ear to ear. I reach for my phone and open the Messages app. It from Gigi, my daughters’ great grandmother of sorts. This time, the picture is of my newborn twins. A week ago, she sent me a picture of…
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COVID-19 Diaries: The Little Things
With this week, we have all been home for over four weeks with the rare exception of the weekly grocery runs by the husband. Some days, the kids and I step out for some sun keeping to the small grassy oval in front of our home. On adventurous days, I even walk the full loop,…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Decluttering
I took Friday and today off ostensibly to figure out a schooling plan for the children. My intentions were in the right place. Birthday plans consumed Friday. The weekend was grunt work: grinding batter, laundry, groceries, and just everyday things. Today, however, I decided to tackle the girl’s bedrooms. Growing up, I was the child…
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COVID-19 Diaries: I Am The Lottery
I see my reflection on the dirty powder room mirror and pause, really pause. The face staring back at me is beautiful. Perhaps it is the lighting or the two years of sticking to a walking routine or just the effect of being indoors all the time for over a month. I like what I…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Missed Milestones
“Can you bake me a chocolate cake?” My littlest one asks, her round eyes wide with anticipation. I add ingredients to my virtual cart and cross my fingers and pray. “How many days to my birthday?” “Can I wear a dress for my birthday?” “Can you get me an Elsa bike?” “Can you get me…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Life Goes On
It is a bright, sunny day. All through the day, I alternate work, kitchen and online studies with the kids. There is a point towards the end of the workday when I throw in the towel, order the kids off their iPad, their IXL sessions be damned and head out for a bit of fresh…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Pockets Of Happy
I woke with throbbing pain behind my right eye, the premonition of a raging migraine for later in the day. I powered on, hoping the pain will go away. By mid-day, the light from the screen, the smells from cooking, the sounds of my children happily playing all clashed, clanged and reduced me to tears.…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Schooling Unschooling
It is a day into week three of the five of us at home. This week also marks the start of formal online school for all three children. While I struggled the past two weeks, the knowledge that all of it was optional let me operate a little guilt-free. This week they started easy. About…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Ambivalent
Today caps two full weeks of the entire family staying home. We are settling into a pattern of sorts. If last week felt overwhelming because I was trying to be a conscientious employee and a full-time homemaker, this week was better because I decided perfection is impossible. I let things slide. I told myself it…
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COVID-19 Diaries: The Elephant In The Room
It is almost 6:00 pm. My mind is thinking about what to make for dinner. The IM on my work machine pings. The request is almost always polite, there is an illusion of choice. “I can do it,” I say. I want to be done with it as well. It is well past 7:00 pm…
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COVID-19 Diaries: A New Normal
I wake up sans alarm. My varied routine now has me logging into work with coffee, catching up on emails, working out and then scrambling to put breakfast before the slew of work calls start at 8:30 am. Saathi works at a steady pace until the children are up and then take over trying to…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Birthday Edition
Today was a day I had a lot planned for my twins. Ice cream cake, pizza, a sleepover with friends and possibly surprise gifts. Instead, we woke up to giggling girls, skipped breakfast, ate badam kathli, downed a simple kootu and rice for lunch, napped and cuddled as a family and spent the rest of…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Struggling
Today marks the end of the first work week of quarantine. A week in which as working adults we were expected to put in full days, homeschool kids and keep the house running. The work part went okay because it fell to me to organize my time and do what is needed to keep things…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Juggling
I log in with a coffee and croissant by my side. The email volume is low and I figure I might get the dosai and adai maavu done if the day was going to be light. I get up, soak a mixture of rice and dals in varying proportions and return to my seat. I…
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COVID-19 Diaries: Exhausted!
It is not yet 8:30 pm. The exhaustion I feel is bone-deep. My day began around 5:30 am and it has been a whirl of activity. Working, cooking, cleaning, feeding, and sitting with decimal math for two kids at the fag end of a long day took everything out of me. The average course load…
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COVID-19 Diaries: The Beginning
I walk around the home at 5:30 am, raising blinds to be met with inky darkness, putting a pot of coffee and logging into work. This is not my usual routine. Nothing about today is normal. Late yesterday evening, I turned off all my alarms and reminders. The ones that wake me, the ones…