Nishanth S Coontoor
I logged into my laptop to put in a few hours and get some work done. I’ve always viewed the weekend as an opportunity to ‘catch up.’ Sometimes, the ‘catch up’ starts on a Friday evening with Netflix on the side because the world will ask me what I did over the weekend and I need to have an answer.
Work means To-do lists. And To-do lists mean lots of post-it notes. Notes on my desktop. Notes on the fridge. Notes on the whiteboard in the living room lest you forget.
One such bright yellow post-it popped up on my screen. It was a plan to take some time off in May. I had an elaborate plan down to the hour of the day that included travel from New York City – New York to Nashville – Tennessee to Indianapolis – Indiana, Chicago – Illinois and Daytona Beach – Florida. Lol. How the turntables.
Like the plan above, a lot of things have come to an abrupt halt, haven’t they?
In a matter of a month, the stock market turned from a bull market to a bear market. Airlines that were doing well are now waiting for bail outs. Some companies have already laid off their staff. The economy that was riding high just handed out a stimulus check.
Since I stay close to New York City, I get to travel to the city often. My memories of the city so far have been packed, loud streets filled with people (and lots of them) and yellow cabs and cars and honking. Sometimes I just people watch – not in a creepy way. I sit down in the middle of Times Square and just realize how ‘alive’ it always is. There are the obvious smiling tourists taking pictures. There are colorful, bright ads all around. There are people constantly crossing streets. There are street performers everywhere. But even in the middle of all this, at 1 am in the night, there are workers cleaning the streets prepping for the day ahead. It seemed unstoppable, until now.
Its not just New York City, but most cities in the world. I saw a few pictures recently of Bangalore streets and they were so surreal. The most unbelievable was the one of an empty Silk Board Junction in Bangalore. For those who don’t know, the traffic in this junction is so heavy that I have seen several professionals, I kid you not, just open their laptop in the middle of traffic and begin work instead!
No matter how many post-it notes you had with detailed, fool-proof plans, most of them were brought down by something smaller than a cell – the virus in this case.
This temporary pause in the world around us has proven positive in some cases though.
I saw beautiful, colorful pictures of Spring in Bangalore. Let me repeat that. Spring.in.Bangalore. Having stayed 21 years in the city, I never paid attention to it because you are always on the move and distracted by the pollution and traffic!
The lockdown has meant several rivers have started to heal themselves due to reduced pollution. The smog is clearing up in Delhi. People can see the Himalayas from Punjab!
On a personal front, there have been some changes as well. This lockdown has meant catching up with extended family and friends you lost contact with because life just got busy. Lots of zoom, whatsapp and watch party calls. In some cases, it has been an opportunity to spend time with the immediate family as well beyond the weekend. My friend’s family went back to playing carrom in the evenings into the night. The last time I recall my world paused like this was during school summer holidays. Maybe this is a temporary return of those summer holidays for some of us. Can’t wait to eat some mangoes!
Simply Be is: Preeti and Viswa on vocals, and Karan on guitar. It brought back memories of warm, clear summer nights when my daily routine paused.
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay