Lockdown has proved traumatic to those with wanderlust. To some, however, it has been a wake-up call. The rude jolt to a never-imagined harsh reality has resurrected a few, potentially considered defunct for long. The realisation dawns at 80, that you have the capacity to function better than you ever did in earlier days. At 60 you had convinced yourself that your abilities were on the wane and charted your schedule accordingly. At 70, you were scrap-heap material in the zone of domestic chores. Whatever, chores notwithstanding, you find you have time to read books left midway, strum a few discordant notes and sing songs like “those were the best days of my life,” that you belted long, long ago.
A home-bound person by choice, a clamp on outdoor sprees meant nothing. Dispensing with the maid, however, for what I thought was a short period, was mind-boggling. The kitchen and I were never inseparable amigos. I stepped in only on occasions when my culinary efforts were indispensable. I have always been lucky with cooks or rather with a family that does not complain about food. These days, with delivery systems and caterers of every kind, food was no problem to reckon with, I thought until the lockdown barred that as well! My mother’s words echoed from a distant past, “If you cannot circumvent troubles, learn to navigate them.”
My mornings now defy senectitude. Kitchen chores, and all of it over, I rush to my study. I plonk into my chair and gaze out of the large, breezy windows. Dulcet bird-notes percolate through the leafy network. A flurry of frisky squirrels play hide and seek, setting foliage all a-quiver or race up the bole of a palm, or make a dash for nowhere. A duo of koels with plaintive cries, a solitary kingfisher, a splash of blue, cinnamon white and burnt ochre, on the curry-leaf tree; sometimes a golden-backed woodpecker hammering away with its beak on a bark in staccato-beat; tailor-birds flitting from bush to bough; not to forget the pesky crow which attempts to encroach into the joie-de-vivre of other birds with its craft and caw!
I experience a metanoia as I open my eyes to the beauty around me and to the drink of the magic elixir called interest! A far-fetched equation perhaps, but I am reminded of New Zealand news camera-man, Olaf Wiig, who after having been kidnapped and held hostage for thirteen days and released, announced with a broad smile on his face, “I feel more alive now than I have in my entire life.”