By Ratna Manucha
Foggy windshield or foggy brain?
During the lockdown due to the Covid Pandemic and, much later into 2021, also, one had settled down into a routine of sorts. There was a kind of security in staying indoors and going out became almost non-existent.
Towards the third quarter of 2021, one had started stepping out gingerly to nearly empty places. One day, Boss Man decided to take the car out for a spin (after all, even the car needed some fresh and hopefully virus free air)! Suitably masked, I tagged along. (Those were the days when almost everyone masked up, even inside cars, just in case the dreaded virus sneaked in through the vents!). It was a cloudy day and raining intermittently. The hills in the distance looked inviting with white, cottony clouds sandwiched between their peaks. After driving some distance, I noticed that the scene outside was getting quite blurry. Boss Man continued to drive on, holding the steering wheel with one hand, while at the same time trying to clean the windscreen with his other hand. I watched disinterestedly as his efforts met with little success.
As we drove on, the windscreen fogged up again. This time I took control.
‘Maybe you need to pull up,’ I remarked decisively.
For once, he listened to me and parked the car by the side of the road. I handed him a cleaning cloth and suggested helpfully that he get out of the car and give the windscreen a thorough cleaning. Wonder of wonders, he did just that. The windscreen was clean as a new pin and we drove on. Nothing rang a bell.
The third time when the windscreen fogged up again, it hit me like a bolt from the blue … the car has wipers… and a de-fogging button! OOPS!! Brain fog?
Veggie Woes
The beginning of the lockdown saw paranoia climb to a whole new level. People were frightened out of their wits and refused to touch anything that had come from outside, which included daily provisions, fruits and vegetables. This is what I penned down on Day 3 of the lockdown on March 2020.
‘Day 3 of the Lockdown … Whew! I let out a breath of virus free (I hope) air. One is learning to take it easy nice and slow. So this morning, this is what I did…spread out the veggies, which had been left outside on the verandah by the vendor, washed my hands, picked up the spinach with one hand, opened the door with the other hand, placed it on the kitchen counter and washed my hands, cleaned the spinach and dropped it in water in which potassium permanganate had been added, left it to soak, washed my hands, took the spinach out of the water, chopped it, nicked my finger, washed my hands, dried them, wrapped a bandage around the rapidly bleeding cut and went back to the spinach which was waiting patiently and uncomplainingly on the chopping board…
While completing the job on hand I couldn’t help but wonder that maybe one of the reasons that women in the olden days had good eyesight was that they cleaned and chopped the greens daily in their kitchens. In today’s world, we buy veggies which have already been cleaned, chopped and packaged…and then we make an effort to switch off from social media and go out to a park to freshen our eyes! Nature’s way of taking us back to our roots.
Mask Mania
Another effect of Covid was and still is the constant fear to keep masking up. In fact it became a joke in our household when we started referring to the mask as a lipstick!
‘ Where’s your lipstick?’ we would ask one another. It was maybe our way of lightening the stress levels and trying to make light of a terribly stressful situation.
One such day, a man came to the gate with a cart full of plants. A visitor at last! I hurriedly picked up my mask and ran outside. He stood there, in a tomato red shirt, looking positively thrilled that he had a potential customer. But on noticing that he was not wearing a mask I admonished him saying that I would not be able to buy any plants from him if he wasn’t wearing a mask. I expected him to reply after which I had all intentions of going indoors and getting him a mask from my cache. But what he did next astounded me. My jaw dropped as I watched him quickly remove his shirt and deftly wrap it around his face! The great Indian jugaad! His makeshift mask was ready and his ingenuity left me spellbound.
It was back to business.
The Power of Habit
And before I knew it, sanitising and washing my hands had become an integral part of me and I seemed to be doing it on auto pilot. The woman who loved rings on her fingers had metamorphosed into one who had no inclination to wear any. Opening doors with my elbows became such a normal thing! No matter if it looked weird…who cares?
And before one could say, ‘Jack Robinson’, a habit had been formed. Pushing open doors with elbows or feet has become the norm rather than the exception and nobody casts strange looks when they see someone doing the same. Shaking hands seems to have become passe and we are back to our ancient customs of joining our hands in a respectful ‘Namaste’.
Life comes full circle, or as William Shakespeare wrote, ‘The wheel is come full circle’.
(Ratna Manucha is an author and educationist)
