Planet 2.0 - Will this happen?

When all this is, hopefully, over and behind us I wonder what new world will we step into.

I'm actually growing used to the idea of lockdown, it seems a good intervention - as a society, we seem to have adapted well.

Consumption is now minimal and need based.

Stress inducing commuting is history.
Instead of a "work - life balance" I think many of us have discovered life is bigger than work.

We stand in queues, without jostling.

Men have learnt to shoulder at least some responsibility of work AT home...

I did see a news report (hopefully fact, not fake) that even said that seismologists are saying the earth's mantle is quieter than a month ago... Because of the slowdown/lockdown across much of the world. Reminds me of TS Eliot's poem's (The Waste Land) ending, Shantih Shantih Shanti

All in all, this is good. I hope we remember the lessons were learning now.

Meanwhile, the lady of the house has acquired sufficient skills to find her way through my (MY? Hers, now) smart TV. We are now sitting, engrossed, watching that delightful comedy series from the 90s... Yeh Joh Hai Zindagi  Life, was it simpler then? Or is that merely the camera tricks of nostalgia?

The Religion of a Virus

Religion is business, BIG business. And this is a truly secular statement of a fact. Whether one is a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian or anything at all, there's tonnes of money to be made... No?
So, to reiterate, entirely unnecessarily, merely for effect - religion is BIG business.
Perhaps - in fact, almost certainly - religion, in pure "turnover" terms must be much, much bigger than my sector, which is insurance.
And so, having set that "background", let me look at a mirror to my own actions...

There I was, earlier last month, in the first week of March, flying out to Delhi on an overnight trip. Business beckoned, I chose to travel. (Also, spent a fantastic evening with a very dear friend, catching up on old times)

A week later, again a business trip, this time down to Chennai, and once again, did not miss the opportunity to meet a couple of very dear friends...
All this while Corona was in the air... I flew, I met clients, I met friends, stayed with relatives, etc.
On return, both times, it was life as usual AND business as usual...

I am (as of now) not a Covid "case" (and, hopefully, won't be) and hopefully I haven't passed on the virus to anyone else...

Now, compare this with the "irresponsible idiots" who went to Nizamuddin Markaz... They, too, went for "work", no?

Or, compare us with the (allegedly) "massive" rally that the BJP took out in Gwalior to welcome a certain Mr Scindia into the fold...

I cannot resist quoting one of the most spectacularly famous "men of god", a certain Jesus of Nazareth

Two Books - a review, of sorts

Two books.
A Man Called Ove, and A Gentleman In Moscow.

Both hugely readable, yet so vastly different.
Both made me smile. Both made me pause every now and then, to let the words soak into my heart. Both certainly NOT "unputdownable", for both demand time to relish, to contemplate..
But where Ove drew you to get involved in his story, completely, to be a part of his life's daily routine... Without once making one feel one was a spectator...
Moscow makes one watch not merely the characters, as if one a stage, it makes one aware that one is, perhaps, witnessing a master puppeteer at work. The characters, the story, everything is spellbinding. But, more than all, what captivates is the beauty of the language. The AUTHOR is the hero, here, firmly capturing ones attention with every turn of a well built phrase, on almost every page.
Rarely has a book shone purely for the felicity of language, as this.
I resist, meanwhile, the urge to discover more about Amor Towles. Where Frederik Backman gave us Ove selflessly, Towles makes sure he's done us a favour, and what's more, makes sure that we know it.
A master at work

Lockdown

Stepped out of my complex today, for the first time in 8 days - it felt strange. Almost empty roads (although, even in this post apocalyptic world I did see one two wheeler driving in the wrong direction - mera Bharat mahan)

At 10:45, not too many shops were open. Just one small bakery. Picked up a few essentials from the masked man behind the counter. He didn't have much, in any case.

I ventured further, ahead to the D'Mart store. Even before I reached, I saw a long serpentine queue stretched even longer by the conscious distance between one patient shopper and the next. Discreetly retreated. Nothing too urgent to warrant standing an hour at the minimum.

Returning back to my complex I notice security is less than half strength at the main gate. I am stopped, tentatively, by a stranger, a new guard, to whom I too am a stranger. My beard and generally unkempt look perhaps made me look undesirable, unworthy of being a resident here.

I walk past him breezily, with insouciance - he quietly slinks back. So much for protection...

Back at my building, a hand sanitizer is the only guard I see. No other human in sight.

Leaves fallen from trees gather in the gentle breeze, assembling together for a seminar of the dead. They rustle, they murmur among themselves, and do a sudden quick dance in a mild strengthening breeze.

My lift arrives, doors swish open. The floor looks unnaturally dirty, splashes of water and shoe marks on the tile. Floor 2, should I press the button? A sudden nervousness grips me.
I pause. Consider. The risk of infection weighs a moment on my mind.
"Ah, hell!"
I press. Go up.
Home.
One week down....

How many more?

The Hare That Slipped Out Of The Race

The lights, inside, are dim and subdued. Unlike the searing heat and brightness of the Indian summer outside in sultry, hot, humid Dadar. 

Pritam da Dhaba. 

The very name conjures the magic of an older, slower, more gentle culture. 

The air-conditioning is just perfect. The waiters, though young, seem to belong to another time. And the beer - and the kebabs - reminiscent of the 80s, when I was younger, more filled with dreams in my eyes and a burning fire in my belly.

That was then. 

Today, smack in the middle of my 50s, the world may be an uglier place, more brash, more crowded with people who have more drive than I. 

But, hey! I'm cool with that. I now know. 

I know I have more time than all of them. 

I'm not in a rush. I'm not in a race. I'm not the tortoise on steroids trying to outrun that hare. 

I am the hare that took the time out, to sleep. 

I'm the guy who, on a Friday AFTERNOON, chose to slow down the mad rush, to break open a cold beer. 

Because. 

Because I choose. 

In a few minutes, this beer will be over. Then lunch. Which, too, in a few more minutes, will get over. 

Time, flies.

Memories, they will remain. Fresh as the first feel of an ice cold beer swishing down a parched throat....

Through My Windshield - I

It is 7:42 on a dark evening/night. On the National Highway coming from Nasik back to Mumbai. I've just crossed Kasara.
The road is reasonably crowded, the usual mix of cars speeding past trundling trucks and crawling containers.
On the side of the road, on a scooter, a young girl/lady, riding alone, merrily.
I do a double take - a girl, alone, on a highway, on a scooter.
Maharashtra! 👍
And then I scold myself silently. The very fact that I noticed it, thought it unusual enough to be worthy of comment... Even in Maharashtra, there is still a whole lot more to be done before a sight such as this becomes "normal"
But I guess Maharashtra will show me this can/will happen.

The Eye of the Needle

 Back in the 1980s I was a young(er) man. And a more voracious reader than I now am. And, back then, my reading was almost entirely fiction - over time, the market share of fiction has come down to around 50% which is still not bad 😁

Anyway.. back in the 80s there was this book, by Ken Follet, titled "Eye of the Needle" (they also made a movie, starring Donal Sutherland and Kate Nelligan, if I'm not mistaken, a damn good flick too, ALMOST as good as the book)

        

Back in the 80s,too, I used to go past the mosque at Thousand Lights, in Madras, on my way to school - and, on the outside walls they had painted several verses from the Quran of which one, particularly, stuck i mind (for the imagery, I guess). It said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven"

Back in the 80s (and even in the 90s) I was a young(er) man. And the eye of the needle was something that I was familiar with. Buttons would come off my shirts, hooks off trousers, and the like. And a needle and thread used to be a handy thing in my travel kit. And threading a needle was child's play. Back then....

When was the last time YOU did that? Threading a needle? The process has not changed in perhaps 2000 years. 

Apparatus required: One Needle, one roll of thread.   

Procedure: Wet the tip of the thread to make the end stand straight. Pass it through the eye. Simple. Or, to be a Hercule Poirot, "Voila!"

As I said, the process has not changed.

So, there I was, yesterday, doing just that. One needle - check! A roll of thread (white colour) - Check. Wet the tip of the thread - check! And... "Voila"? Well, not exactly.

In fact not at all. Instead of a simple "Voila", I found myself smiling at my ineptitude - at first. I tried again. And smile some more. And tried again. A tiny frown, now, because I needed to con-cen-trate. And tried again. That frown? It grew into a grimace. A small muttered oath escaped my lips. And I tried again. A bigger, more pungent oath this time. And again, the oath now in Hindi (stronger, Indian masala) 

And thus it went. On & on.

What was that lesson about Robert Bruce and the spider? If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again... 8 times that spider climbed and climbed to only fall? And succeeded on the 8th attempt? Or 9th? Whatever crap.... I did a spider, I did a Bruce and then, after perhaps 10 attempts, I gave it all up, threw the effing needle and thread away, threw my bleddy spectacles away too, threw my crappy hands up in the air and did what any sensible idiot/fool would have done at the very beginning...

Learn from the Yankees, I say.

I outsourced the bleddy job. One needle, one roll of thread, one maidservant who was in earshot. Job done!

And oh, one thing. Before I forget. Slight change in specs.

Apparatus required: One Needle. One Roll of Thread. One Pair of Good Eyes. There! Now you know.