Mental Excursions

  Self-help is the best help Prime Minister Narendra Modi must be a happy man, at least in one respect. In the initial days when Coronavirus had just started to poke its spikes in our country, he advised the countrymen to become atmanirbhar (self-reliant) and see, how the whole nation has obeyed him.                                         Needless to announce, I am a fan of the Sarabhais!   The credit, however, should unselfishly be shared with the ‘corona’, which incidentally means crown, among the viruses. The first thing it taught us was to look beyond geographical boundaries and understand that bold unifying factors do not care for lines drawn on paper by human beings. It spread over continents, regions, countries, states, cities and villages crossing mountains and oceans, roads and airways. It has ruled over most part of the world in 2020 and turned to garbage the claims of those who had boasted of their military and nuclear powers. But we haven’t yet heard   goodbye from the

  Mask issues   It looks a little hazy outside. I am not sure if this is because of the pollution caused by increasing traffic after the lockdown was lifted and the restriction-fatigued people started getting out of the house, or it is the general haze of the winter season. But it seems masks will have to double-protect us this year. Healthcare workers have been in attendance throughout since the day the virus raised its ugly head. Banks, shops, government and private offices, started functioning months ago and now students are packing school bags to move to in-person learning. The WHO (we know who it is), the doctors, the government and everyone with a sane mind, keeps drumming the importance of wearing a mask when we leave the house especially so in conditions where good physical distancing is not assured which I think is true of most of our public places, to protect us from infection. On the other hand, the asymptomatic ones are advised to wear non-medical masks with selfles

  Wish I could visit a Golu today! Several years ago one of Mani’s seniors in college and in the department, and who is a Tamilian, invited us over to his house for dinner. Never the ones to say ‘no’ to a south Indian meal, we descended on them dot on the appointed hour. What aroused my interest there was a display of figurines on a tiered structure put up right in their living room. I was curious but hesitant to ask questions lest it should be considered ill-mannered. For a long time the wonderful taste of rice and lentil pancakes served with smooth coconut chutney and excellent Tamilian sambar lingered in my mind, but I forgot all that his wife told me about the strange arrangement even though the image left its mark. We went from the north to live in Hyderabad and Bangalore for some years, ate hundreds of dosas as well as all kinds of sambar , attended several functions and witnessed celebrations of many festivals before finally going to live in Chennai nearly half a decade

  Missing travel ? Like any other social creature I too have been, and still am, missing being with some people in this time of social and physical distancing. But I am also missing places and the act of going to places (literally please). Believe me, very destructive thoughts continue to raise their demonish heads within my cranial space against Coronovirus for clipping my wings. The continuous encircling of the sun 24x7 because the planet I am sitting in one corner of, is doing so, does not count as travel for me.   For most of us the aim to travel right now is to meet parents, children, grandchildren and friends whom we haven’t seen for nearly a year, or maybe for work, weddings and funerals and pilgrimage. Travel not only means the excitement of deciding the destination, planning the trip i.e. bus, train and flight tickets, hotel reservations, what to do/see, anyone to meet, what to eat/try,  a book and  something else to do  for the journey and hotel stay, but also packing