music,musings n more

 Uprooted plants, portulacas  dismembered , torn leaves- off late my garden witnessed mysterious attacks which had me baffled . No amount of arranging and rearranging or repotting, had an impact. The Sherlock Holmes in me , looked for clues and could find none. I decided to keep a vigil during the day and positioned myself on the sofa to get a full view of my balcony .   Before long, a handsome hunk, adorned in  astonishing multicolours, appeared . After an end to end inspection of my plants, with a look that said, "uff, cant she have some exotic ones instead of the obvious Portulacas or Vincas,," he started plucking them. No, 'plucking them' would be an understatement, he was pulling it the same way I shred the coconut with my hands, with all my might.. My heart froze in icy horror for a second. My babies, my precious , much looked after plants were suffering. Then regaining my wits, I jumped up from my cozy sofa and with a war cry , ran out in to the sweltering heat

    Back in the 90s, while in college, "a family that ate together... ", was the norm. Privacy was not a word often uttered, let alone having any importance in simple middle class households. A room to yourselves, even if you lived in a fairly large three bedroom house, was not very common. Closing the door to the room and staying most of your waking hours in your own utopia was a big taboo. So, I studied in a bedroom which had a study table and which ensured that I was in tune with the day-to-day household happenings. My concentration power depended on my interest in studies. Everything happened in tandem with the inner and outer microcosm.    And in the ladies hostel where I was put up, space was at a premium. Three narrow beds occupied the whole of the room and the rest held our bags and other paraphernalia, a small curtain with just enough space behind, to extend folded hands was all the privacy we could have. But, that closed space ensured a little world in itself, with

Life prior to the pandemic for me, was pretty chilled, like for many others. And like them I learnt many lessons from the many experiences told and retold by those affected ,  which I vowed will make my life better. Armed with the words of caution from my doctor husband and the volumes of information that the media and the internet provided, not to mention the number of seminars and campaigns attended, I was sure that I was following what my husband coined, SMS, which stands for soap/sanitizer, mask and social distancing. In the month of January 2021, when many were still hesitating to take the vaccine, we boldly got ourselves vaccinated. We did not  have  any post vaccine discomforts. But things turned topsy turvy when a few days later, my husband started complaining of burning sensation all over the body, along with slight fever. Around the same time, I also started feeling quite weak and lethargic.    We booked the RTPCR test and we were sure that it would be positive. But surpris