Day 4 of shelter@home March 20th 2020 Reconnecting with old treasures called friend

Hurrah this is friday!!On a regular week I would have started planning by afternoon to call it a week and start looking for restaurants for dinner. Yup my kitchen is closed on fridays. But today is a different friday. We already had hearty breakfast, sumptuous lunch and thinking what we can have for dinner today??
More than a week since I have been to gym. It is not easy to maintain weight after constantly being at home. Though keeping a check on diet, not making  sweets and confectioneries, trying out some homely exercise ..but still weight will go up. But I won't be sad as this is a sign of existence.

Actually there are many things good about that phase...and reconnecting with friends through chat regularly is one of those many. Though we have a whatssapp group from every possible interactions...but rarely we find to catch up beyond hi, hello whatsapp and you know to keep up with daily rush. But our college group and lab group ( from CCMB) has become super active. Especially I feel really happy to interact and share my feelings and clear out my anxiety with my five friends from college. Even time to time catching up with school friends and batch mates on one-o-one chats. It feels really good to pick up the interaction from where we left years back and in no time they speed up to todays level as across the globe we are all entitled to similar danger and challenge !! COVID-19 has brought us all together irrespective of border, location, occupation, lifestyle, timezone ....etc etc.

We are catching up on movies we have missed, songs that went unheard, gossips we have missed and trust me it feels wonderful!!

Day 3 March19th 2020: Little sunshine and stories brewing up for future

I wake up with some sunlight giving a bright start to my day. Atlast it is all sunny again I thought!
Sun brings in so much of energy within us which we can realise only if we are going through some monotnous dark gloomy patches. After calling up home my parents seems to be quite excited  too with the 22nd March Janata Curfew in India.

As I was soaking the smell of the freshly brewed tea with some ginger to boost the immunesystem ( That aroma of tea is always a mood uplifter for me and works better then the most expensive perfumes or therapeutic essential oils) some lines started coming out of me as if my soal was singing those hyms:

We shall over come..we shall over come. We shall over come someday!!!!
Deep in my heart, I do believe...we shall overcome some day!!

Sweet but very powerful lines once born in this country during civil right movement. Later those were adapted by different nations in there own language as a protest/as self proclaimation/self assurance to boost up spirit.

I have not seen world war, freedon fight, the blood shed of 80 ( which happened in my state Tripura)...curfew, protest, panic were more or so imagination for me as the worst I could remember is when Rajeev Gandhi was bombed in 1991 and when Dr Rajkumar died ( I was in Bangalore for my graduation then).

So, this fight agaist virus by self isolaion and sheltering at home is a true cutfew I am experiencing for the first time. First time when we are stocking up stuffs for weeks and restricting breathing in the fresh air for days. Everyday I am praying to God for the wellbeing of mankind.

Hope to come out of it soon by all joining hands together and staying strong with all these self imposed restrctions. So henceforth we can too share about our experience about this pandemic and how we fought against it..

Day 2 of shelter @ home: March 18th, 2020

The Day is gloomy. As if the sun is taking shelter @ home to protect himself from Corona Virus!! After some good warm discussion with friends from college spread across the globe , wonding up daily chores and office work pulled myself out ignoring the bad climate. If not then I am sure later I will keep on blaming myself for not going out and soaking in some fresh air  and keep on feeling bloated and breathless ( reminds me of breathless by Shankar Mahadeva). Oh forgot to mention that inspite of all these I had a warm feeling rolling inside as it was birthday of a elder sister like neighbor. I managed to bake a small eggless yoghurt cake with orange flavour and a dash of condensed milk with buttercream frosting for her as most of her family members are vegeterians.


Outside I walked down to a neighbourhood  Trader's Joe to check if they have stocked up.  Our family loves there colleaction of chicken momo and suimai.  I was scepticle to enter the complex as I could spot a big queue from far but  I was taken aback by there preventive measures to protect the staffs and the customers. They were ensuring that there should be a gap of 6 inches between people in the queue and also 25 of them inside the store at a time to avoid unnecessary crowd inside. Also loved there display board which request that they wont allow more then two number of each item to one customer and restricting total purchase of items to only one
cart full. This policy will ensure something is there for
 everyone and people wont end up over stocking. Inside there were moderate availibility of stuffs. Though I got certain things like whole wheat bread, momo's were still out of stock or over for the day.

This are actually little changes that will bring big impact to the society in the long run. To manage with the minimum and to value little things and still being satisfied is a skill that is important for sustainibilty. Probably after this Corona impact phase we will a new individual with many new skill and a different outlook and perception. 

  I was walking back in the almost empty otherwise busy road. Could spot some road repair vans on the other side of the road repairing the water line along the walkway. The workers were without mask. Also spotted two homeless wandering in the street and both were stinking of weed. Atleast in this part of Bay area we rarely spot them. So I was wonedring if they are police informers keeping an eye on the locality in disguise. Came back home to prepare some ginger tea and chicken nuggets. For dinner I made some chilly mushroom and thin masoor daal ( lengtil) with rice over some warm discussion in whattsapp while peeping into wonderful stuffscooked by my cousin.                              

 First Day of Shelter at home @ California ( 17th March 2020)

Just after drinking my cup of morning tea I rushes to the Indian store. I was also anxious to see the roadside senerio of how it feels to be under 'shelter @ home' decalaration. I was walking and looking if there is any patrol to monitor if residents are abiding my the rules allocated by them. As a precurser, I had a ziplock full of sanitizing wipes and a small bottle full of hand sanitizer in the pocket of my coat. I went with presumption that it might be crowded . But to my surprise there were not many people. I carefully wiped my trolley and went inside to discover that veggies are completely out of stock. I am running short of green chillies, a must have for our kind of bengali cuisines. I ended up picking some unnecessary stuffs ( over priced organic version) like whole cumin, Karachi bakery's Chai biscuit ( a box for 5$) and came back home. After picking up every item I was practically wiping my hands and was not touching my face , while diligently keeping a distance with fellow shoppers who were incidently my neighbors. I was surprise to spot the people in the cash not sporting any mask which is desirable for there safety at this moment.

What really saddened me the most is a sight that caught my eyes afer coming out of the store. In the pavement I could spot so many ( atleast 6-7) blue nitrile gloves lying down. It refelects that even with so much of warning people are acting dumb and loosing there civic sense. Just for the sake of self precaution they are polluting the environment. There kids only might step on those sometime and pick up germs from the accumulated droplets and dirts.

This shelter at home is the right time to pace down and look deeply to observe and find out: where might have human gone wrong in there rat race of betterment ?We were so much busy to run after technology that probably we forgot to care for the nature which is more important for our well bieng. This is the ideal time to sit down and question ourselves as how really can we contribute to make this place ideal for coexhistance and to give back ( rebuilt is an impossible term) the nature.  We all should have a cent of contribution everyday.

 COVID-19  California Bay Area Shelter in place 2020

This new year as we were about to start with new hope and dreams, we landed up amist a new pandemic spreading across the globe like a rapid fire. We are living in complete fear that any moment the deadly virus will evade our home and disrupt our existance. We were all these days refraining from meeting friends , relatives and neighbours.

From March 16th,2020 we are ordered 'Shelter in place'....where we cannot leave our shelter without urgent need  like visiting grocery stores and medical shops or gas stations. In my lifetime I remember leaving in carfew for few days in India. First time when I was quite small and around 5 years old after Rajiv Gandhi was killed and next when I was in college and Dr Rajkumar a South Indian Superstar passed away. I have bad memories from the first one as it went for some long time and president rule was enforced.

This 'shelter in place' in California will be a completely new experience for us. We always assumed that life in the Worlds best country will be fast paced and super protected. We have insurance to save gaurd us for every sphere of life to avail all these benefit. But now is the time to check what we can make out of all the best fascilities this best place can provide us to savegaurd ourselves from this COVID-19.

We already have stock of home essentials to last us for a fortnight. Thought of getting some more stuffs as this will continue for next 3 weeks. But all the stores are super crowded. We almost came back without even daring to enter...Tried ordering online. Either the items are not available or there is no delivery slots available.

Wondering what is waiting next????

After coming  home and as soon I opened the laptop got a mail from my 6 yrs old's maths class. It says we have to collect the workbooks since they too will be shutting down till further announcement. As a result had to pull myself out of the comfort and march towards the street. It was already raining by the time I started.

After reaching the eye level center , they requested me to come back after half an hour since they are yet to prepare the packet. Since crowd was just too much, I decided to wait outside to abide the guidlines of maintaing social distance. The  rain droplets from inside was looking very thick. The moment I cam eout I realised it is hailstorm along with rain. Quite uncommon for bay area..

As I came outside near the parking I could see cars covered with hails forming white layer. I was missing the march hailstorm ( precisely march) from my childhood @ Agartala. We used to collect those pieces together to form large lumps. Rub those in our cheeks or put them inside mouth pretend playing those as ice creams.

But today I was in no mood to try those as I have the scare of falling sick. Started preparing my mind about ailments I need to do to boost my immunity after reaching home. My umbrella became lined with hail pieces and so are my shoes. Instead of enjoying those which should have been the case some other time I was feeling scared. But soon, the flow of hail started to reduce. I looked out of my umbrella to see if the sun is coming out and to my surprise I could spot something that made my day.

 A beautiful rainbow up there is the sky to lift up my spirit and symbolising that after every gloomy days there is something fresh and bright waiting for us.