lockdown

My husband lives in Hyderabad and I live in Vellore. This has become necessary because of our divergent career paths. He wants to be in academics, I want to write, learn several martial arts and see a few patients in the time left over.

We met every weekend for the last seven years. Ther is something surreal about that. All the little niggling faults with made life together on a daily basis just about bearable without an explosion are bathed in a rosy hue. It also made the 15 kilos of dirty laundry that he brought a gift for me every weekend tolerable.

Then COVID struck.

Husband has been stuck in Hyderabad since March.

"How are you managing for food?" I asked. Are you able to get Swiggy?" (He used to take frozen food packets from Vellore.)

"No there is no Swiggy. "

"Of course there is," I said.

"My fancy apartment complex will not allow delivery."

"What about getting it delivered to your office?"

Apparently, his wards had been commandeered and made into a COVID ward. The delivery boys refused to come.

"How are you managing for clothes?"

"Do you know," he said, "I have enough clothes to manage for a month without washing. They are lifting the lockdown on April 14th."

The government extended the lockdown and the cloths situation started spiralling out of control.

"Do you think," he asked hopefully, "I can air out my clothes? We used to do that when we were in the NCC."

No wonder even parents did not hug NCC cadets when they returned from camps but greeted them a arm's length.

"You were younger then. Now you if you do that, when you enter the room people will start looking around for the over-ripe jackfruit!"

We decided that he should start doing his own laundry. I decided to guide him through the process using What's App video. The only problem was that the laundry room did not have good Wi-Fi signal. At every stage, he kept bounding into the hall like a jack rabbit.

"It won't come on."

"Press buttons 1 and 4."

"it still doesn't work. "

"Press in sequence after switching on the plug."

"It still doesn't work."

Exasperated I said ,"Did you turn on the water?"

"Why are you yelling," he asked, "you didn't say the tap has to be turned on!"

Finally, when the cycle was over, he said,"The clothes are still dirty."

He was beginning to sound like some of my older female patients who still felt that "hand wash" was better than "machine wash" and that the washing machine was an unfriendly alien surreptitiously waiting to destroy their clothes.

"Did you put in the detergent?"

"No," he said "you didn't ask me to. You don't know how to give instructions. This is all very complicated."

 (Did I mention he has a PhD?)

So it was my fault?

He had a brilliant solution.

"The roads are opening up on May 3rd. I will drive to Vellore with all the dirty laundry piled into the car."

I think he might just make it. No self-respecting policeman is going to want to venture too close to the car to check the validity of travel documents. The sheer odour will be overpowering.

Dr Gita Mathai

 http://velloretimes.blogspot.in/

stealing during the Covid lockdown

It definitely was cause and effect. The roads had barricades manned by baton-wielding policemen. Where so many police turned up from for a small town like Vellore is a mystery. I seldom see them otherwise even when you need them.

The traffic accidents were less. mainly because there has to be traffic for accidents. Chain snatching (very common) was unheard of. Women wearing chains have to be on the road and not in their houses to be attacked. Technically though, describing an assailant would be difficult because of the universal use of face masks. They are no longer the purview of highwaymen and bank robbers.

I stand on my terrace every morning and look at the empty road below, bereft of walkers and bikes. For the last four days, I have been regularly seeing a white Vespa. It stops at a demarcated "plot for sale" down the road, and the man removes a single 3 foot granite boundary marker. He then balances it on the bike and goes off.

Today was Sunday and the fourth day. He turned up at 6:30 am on schedule. After he left,  I was drinking coffee when I heard a man banging on the gate. A white car was parked outside. I shouted from a safe 10-foot distance (my mask was upstairs),"What is it?"
"Did you see anyone?"
"Not really," I said, "this is a deserted mud dead-end road."
"Someone has stolen four of my granite poles," said the man irately.
"Oh yes," I said " a man has been taking them one at a time every day. I thought they were his. I thought he was the owner. "
" I am the owner!! Why didn't you stop him?"
I looked at him.
"With that mask, you and he look the same. Except", I said helpfully, " he also has a crash helmet."
"What do you think he was doing?" asked the man.
"Perhaps constructing a gate to  his house---- Why don't you go to the police?"
At the barricade, the irate policeman screamed at him, " I am standing here for 12 hours trying to prevent people from spreading the Coronavirus and dying. And you want me to chase down granite poles?"
http://velloretimes.blogspot.in/