Pan 5 - Tense, Tenser, Tensest.......

Chuck the grammar.....if there were more degrees, I'd have added more.

That was how it felt. Three hours after I thought she was in the air,  she's saying they had engine trouble and were asked to deplane.

And then they were given dinner coupons and dinner.

And then they were rescheduling, as they were shifting them to another plane.

The clock towards the ban was ticking...we were down to counting.

And finally they took off at 10.50 pm. 

I will leave it to your imagination to figure what degree of stress those few hours were :)

At that point one of her friends here sent me a message saying "aunty, I have a cool link, it tells you the exact location of her flight, with height and wind speed too....I'll send it to you".

I was like "Rustom, please......thanks, but while I get how cool the link sounds, if I see that level of detail I think I'll have a nervous breakdown. You've been with me through this....you please track her flight, and let me know only if eta changes" :)

And finally at 2.15 am of 22nd she lands in Hyd.

Next came the possibility of the quarantine

While folks in family were very concerned about the quarantine, I wasn't.

To me all that mattered is that she was back. In comparison to the other scary possibilites of getting stranded in Singapore airport...... or under the circumstances even being stuck in Australia for god knows how long, fourteen days in quarantine seemed negligible.........I was just so so happy to have her back in Hyderabad.

In a crisis of this proportion, being together seemed to be all that mattered.

And that's when the tide turned. She breezed through the airport check, so much so she was out before I reached the airport........and I could drive right onto the arrivals ramp and pick her up.

She came out with this stamp on her hand....'home quarantined  - 4/4/2020'

And thus started the next phase of this story....... right from receiving her at the airport with a mask on,  and a distance of five feet.

I had prepared myself for it, physically and emotionally.....but trust me, it's not easy. I could stock up on sanitizers and groceries..............but what of the hugs and kisses which are an every day staple too :)

Pan 4 - When every minute was felt......

This was the whole of 21st March '2020.

Or rather it started from the 20th night itself, as her reporting time was 3 am, and she lives an hour away from the airport.

I was like "how will you go at that time deech?" and she's like "chill ma, I'll get a cab, or someone will drop me, I'll figure, don't worry".

I was like "no diksha, please....get a two way cab if needed, but please get someone to come with you....it's 2 at night ".

Knowing diksha, I should have known better. She had a literal farewell scene....her entire group of friends came to the airport to see her off .......nine of them, in two cars !! I couldn't believe it..... I was telling her how in my whole life that hadn't happened to me :)

Then the scene shifts to the airport. 

She said it was like a zombie town. Hardly any people.... and after check-in they wouldn't let her even go through security until the very end. Spooky she said.

Then she sent me this picture, from within the plane.

Literally all seats empty, the plane had all of five passengers on it. Look at that guy in a full hazmat suit. She said even his dark glasses were a couple of inches away from his face.  In fact she said when she looked up and saw him walking towards her, for a moment she felt like she was in some kind of surreal sci-fi movie. 

Flight done, it was now an eight hour layover at Singapore.

And those were the most tense hours, atleast for me :). While I kept messaging her intermittently, and I told a friend it was to keep her morale up, I realized later it was likely me needing it more.  I couldn't completely get away from the thought of how narrow this was, and implications of something going wrong.

Plus I had the delicate job of letting her know that once she's here she would need to be in self isolation for 14 days.

She made that easier for me. Sitting in Singapore airport for eight hours likely gave her a real feel of the covid atmosphere, for somewhere in between I got a message saying "I'm beginning to feel I might get quarantined when I get back".

That was my cue...I was like "well, best be prepared for that possibility.  And if not that, it's definitely self isolation.....from the moment you land....it'll be five feet distance".

And she's like "you mean I can't hug you when I see you? I'm not following that rule ma"

And that broke me. I could feel the tears rolling down all of their own volition. I thought I had done a good job of keeping my stress at bay, but I guess there are moments it needs out, and this was one such.

I literally hadn't moved from my couch all of those eight hours. I was counting minutes to when her flight would take off. 

At 5 pm she messages saying she's boarded.....and I start to breath again.

I had decided to go to my parents place only after her flight had taken off. So much for that......I'm with them, chilling over chai... a whole two hours later, and imagine my utter shock when I get a  "hellloooo bro" from diksha.

My first thought was wondering if they had introduced wifi on aircrafts....my mind couldn't wrap itself around any other possibility ......and a couple of minutes later I get "lol, still here ma".

And the minutes started to tick again :)

Pan 3 - 0000 hours ; 22nd March '2020

When I first got the message about the likelihood of the 'international flights suspended from 22nd', I was plain stunned.

At that moment I only knew that Diksha was leaving on 21st.... first leg being Perth to Singapore, an eight hour layover in Singapore, and then Singapore to Hyd....which sounded like she would definitely be landing on the 22nd.

Maybe that would have made the decision....even if a difficult one, of staying back in Australia.

But it wasn't to be. When I tell Diksha about the ban, she sends me her ticket saying "I land at 10.30 pm local time on 21st".

As narrow as that. 

And that's where our opinion differed. I was like "it's too narrow deech, what if your flight gets delayed by an hour.....what if they decide to cancel last minute.....the implications are scary....you'll get stuck in Singapore". And she's like "no ma, I'm coming.....I'm sure there will be others on the flight and they won't cancel......imagine that flight coming to Hyd and me having cancelled, how would you feel then"

We both go back to our individual thinking boards. She spoke to her friend who said 'worst case scenario, you get stuck, it's fine you can go stay with my family in Singapore'. I talk to a friend in Singapore and he says 'ofcourse, she's welcome to stay with me' (thanks Dhruva Shankar for that immediate reassurance when people around were telling me no one will host her at a time like this)

I spent a few hours frantically trying to call Singapore Airlines to see if they had clarity, but try as I might I couldn't get through.

I shifted focus to what happens if she gets stranded in Singapore.

A little more research, and I realize she needs to get a medical certificate from a doc in Perth and get it cleared by the Singapore overseas medical mission and then provided she tests negative, will be given a short term visa into Singapore.

She had just one day and she was busy with her semester deferment, cancellation of rental agreement, surrendering her sim card and all those winding down activities.

So that option got ruled out.

Late night I kept googling for more information. Every news portal said 22nd March, none mentioned time. 

Someone told me they heard 0000 hours. My heart sank. Especially as I realized that Diksha was by then in full momentum to come, and convincing her to stay back was going to be heartbreaking, for her as well as for me.

And then late night, and with more clarity the next morning, I found a couple of news clips that said the ban was from 0000 GMT and not IST. What a relief....that gave us five more hours. 

Phew.....enough breathing space. Or so we thought :)

Pan 2 - When this roller coaster ride began.......

While Covid was yet in the air.... this I think was on the 16th of March, just about a week back....is when this story began.

Up until then we were sitting at what seemed like a safe distance....it looked like things were happening in Wuhan and Milan and New York.... but it all seemed rather far away, still paper news, and what was happening here was more precautionary.

And then came the news that universities were shutting down, and what's worse, that students were being asked to vacate campus. That was my first concerned call to Diksha.

It set the thinking wheels whirring...... she was weighing options of losing an year of college (her university is still functioning, though mostly online), her campus not shutting down as their village as it's called, is a privately run housing tenement within campus, having a supportive group of friends...... the looming crisis......and figuring what she wanted to do. 

Despite advice to the contrary, of friends telling me that she's a tween and yet a child and I cannot leave the decision to her, I did. It's my core value in life. I took it upon myself to give her as much information as I could, be the white board for brain storming, enabling thought, giving perspectives........yet leaving the decision to her. 

I knew of people in my position who were either forcing, or emotionally arm twisting their children to come back. It took my all to do neither.

There was one evening when I'm asking her if she'd checked on tickets and she's like "I haven't yet decided ma, but trust me, I'm thinking harrdddd".

It's only much later that I was telling a friend how it's so much harder to 'allow and enable a decision and align into it' than to take the decision. Right or wrong I wouldn't know, but I'm happy with it. With knowing that my approach of 'allowing risk, letting the children figure how to handle risk, and being there no matter what' is something I could abide by even under such dire circumstances. To keep it at all times about them, and not us.

On 18th she took the decision to come back. Tickets were booked for the 6 am of 21st March, to fly in through Singapore.

One day of breathing relief.....that's all I got.

On 19th March at about 5 pm, I got the news that India was closing down all international flights from the 22nd. 

That was a sure spiral. The feeling you get when the roller coaster is on a steep slope, being pushed into the air, heart in mouth, and  held in place by only the seat belt, except that this was for real, and I didn't know if we had that seat belt.

Pan 1 - Nayaa Nazariyaan

As real .......as metaphorical.

While I started writing this post, almost a couple of weeks ago.....it was more specific to my lens implants....the literal shift. So let me start with that.

That day last month, decision to go ahead with surgery taken, when I was leaving home for my eye surgery, and I was saying bye to Faizan at home, I was like  "क़ुदाफिज़ faizan, नया नज़रियाँ के सात वापस आऊँगी ". (bye faizan, I will be back with a new vision).

Who ever thought it would get so metaphorical. It did ......and by multiple levels. 

I got my eye lens implanted, both eyes....reason being I didn't want to wear glasses anymore.

While that in itself has been, rather is being, an adventure of sorts....right from taking the decision, the halos I see around lights now, a kind of blur in one eye, the innumerable drops that are still going into my eyes......what stands out is the sheer joy of not having to wear glasses. After a complete dependency on glasses for years....... this is sheer bliss.

It's so wonderful, that while theoretically high risk, it's somewhere up there with one of the best decisions I've taken in life. 

And then, even before I could be done with post op........even as I was starting to see a  metaphorical shift happen in terms of  personal level barriers and boundaries getting breached ( naaya nazariyaan for real)........what's been happening since has changed not just my vision.....but life itself.

As we all know 'life as we knew it has changed'.

And I have a rather personal story there as well, one that I feel I need to capture for posterity.

Even as I write, Diksha is on 'home quarantine'......she got back to India on the last flight in from Singapore before the flight ban set in........amidst some crazy level uncertainty and stress.....an experience that deserves capture, in terms of decision, experience, and hopefully daily life through a quarantine.

An Atlas of Impossible Longing

One of those books I wished would never end.......

it was like being on a trip, and one so beautiful that nothing could mar it.... one of those that stays lingering in the heart long after the last page is turned.

Anuradha Roy seems to tune into people and their relationships, not as much with other people as also with their houses, the houses themselves become like significant characters. I love that about her.

At a personal level, I get attached to houses, and I like that my house symbolizes and reflects me in every way, and that's an added connect into her writing.

The characters and how their lives intertwine is so intricate that I am wary of even taking a shot at storyline....but suffice it to say it's a story that spans three generations set in the early 1900's of India, in small towns near Calcutta....through it's partition, and restoration.

More than story review, here's something on the book from The Washington Post that's worth a read:

"Every once in a great while, a novel comes along to remind you why you rummage through shelves in the first place. Why you peck like a magpie past the bright glitter of publishers’ promises. Why you read.

No “news hook” will have brought you to it. No famous name on the spine will suggest what’s in store. But as you slip into the book’s pages, you sense you are entering a singular creation, a richly populated world. Curiosity overcomes you. Before long, you are surrendering to the voice of a confident narrator, the arc of an unfamiliar story. And then, suddenly, you are swept away in a tale that is bristling with incident, steeped in the human condition, buffeted by winds of fate. This, you think, is the feeling you had as you read “Great Expectations” or “Sophie’s Choice” or “The Kite Runner.” This is why you read fiction at all."

I so agree. While I never fully moved away from fiction, she's definitely brought me fully back in.

And this line from the  New York times touched a poignant note

Some longings really do remain impossible, and on its best pages, though not its final ones, this book knows it.

Colour and Cuteness

That's what got added to my walk at kbr today;

this lovely splattering of purple flowers

same bunch taken from the other side

there are actually ten peacocks in this single frame, and one dancing too, sadly with it's back to the camera

this was the best....three little owls on a branch

And what's more, today I bumped into an old friend just as I was starting on my walk and that's the reason I walked the inner circuit. So must say, thanks Musharaf, not just for that invigorating conversation....but also, as you can see from the pictures, it became more than worthwhile, ought to have gotten one of you as well :)