Living in the Times of Corona

The first realization of lockdown was when I transitioned from working at office to working from home. The transition was smooth and I was saving the time and money usually spent on commute to office. No more thermal gun scans too.

The next new thing experienced during the lockdown was Zoom meetings. We had family group exercise sessions and a birthday cake cutting for my niece with Zoom participants from Chennai, Mumbai, Dubai, London, Singapore, and Malaysia. Not to forget the CBC Zoom meeting and chatting with fellow bloggers. During one Zoom session, it was interesting to note there were Zoom Rooms and two or three participants can be allocated a private room to discuss. The organizer could peep into any of the rooms and watch. 

Zoom Chat

As things were not freely available in the local market, I slowly switched over to the Dunzo app for purchasing fruits, vegetable, groceries, and meat. Using an app for purchasing things comes with its own share of ups and downs. Once I got a pack of Bingo as the Lays chips I ordered was not available. The delivery boy calls from the store and says,” Ma’am, there are no Chandrika soaps.” So, I ask him to buy three small size Dove soaps instead. Or ask him to buy more fruits if a sugar pack was not available.

Once we got farm fresh extra extra large potatoes fully covered with mud. I had to wash it three times with water to make it more presentable to my anti online family members. Usually, you had to opt for either a half kilo or a one kilo purchase. The 250 gms option was a rarity. And so you were always left with more share of vegetables than you need.

Once a delivery guy called from a chicken stall and said, “Ma’am there are 50 to 60 people standing before me. They give preference to direct customers and are asking us to wait.” So, I coax him to wait and buy, and promise to give him extra tips. Another delivery boy in a similar situation opted to not wait. So, another guy was assigned in his place and he sportingly brought us the things.

Another time a dozen bananas came in fully green colour. If we shop in person, we will rarely buy such bananas. But, thankfully, the bananas turned yellow in a day or two. Once we wanted to buy ordinary Colgate toothpaste. But, the store I was looking at listed only Colgate Active Salt Neem toothpaste. So, getting what you are looking for in an online purchase can sometimes be tricky. It was funny as well as heartwarming to see that even the Rs.3 or Rs.5 that the store owed you was returned to your bank in a few days.

On the personal front, I have been Walking at Home by looking at the Walk at Home with Leslie Sansone series on YouTube. Leslie is an enthusiastic and experienced trainer and her energy and laughter is infectious.

Founder of Mouna Raagam music troupe Murali is singing daily in Facebook Live to collect money for the SPB Charitable Foundation for helping Corona victims. Murali is my Anna University college year mate and he performs rare as well as hit songs. His Facebook link is here.

I watched some nice movies and documentaries in Netflix and Amazon Prime. One different and nice thriller in Netflix was the 1946 movie named “The Stranger” starring Orson Welles. The movie “1922” was also unique. Other notable movies were Thappad, Talwar, and Ugly (Hindi). Sillu Karupatti was a nice Tamil movie about four love stories across different age groups. Notable documentaries were Becoming, Operation Foxley, Inside Bill’s Brain, Kim Jong Un – the unauthorized biography, and Steve Jobs.

When we rant about the minor hiccups in our daily life and rave about our minor pleasures, we can’t forget the sad situation of daily wage workers, migrant laborers, and small time entrepreneurs. Team Everest NGO is helping the families of daily wage workers with their funds. If you wish to donate, please check out this link. 

Of course, the masks are always on when we meet anyone bringing things home. On a lighter note, this was a funny meme about the future of masks :)