July'20 Ends for the Goodness Sake!
Alarm interrupted my early morning
sleep, I, involuntarily, put if off, and slept again, until, mom buzzed in my
ears, just to remind me about the college meeting. I heavily got up and was kind-of
ready in an hour. The rickshaw uncle fetched me at home, and I, on my way, kept
thinking about the face to face meeting in college which was to happen almost after
5 long months of lockdown. I thought, if some more instructions are coming up
about the online lectures or is it about cutting down the salary or is it about
cutting the EMPLOYEE and should it be me! While so many thoughts showed up in
my superfast mind just like a spooky PowerPoint presentation, there came a familiar
figure walking towards me near the meeting hall, it was mam A, and her usual
boy cut was transformed in to a pinky-ponky blunt cut with a few random steps;
and so was the case with other ladies who gracefully walked into the meeting
hall like a herd of Rapunzels in the upper floor castle, all set to shoot their
hair downstairs for the next incoming teachers. I naughtily chuckled in my mind. Principal complimented
us for the number of e-lectures but he contradicted his own compliment at the speed
of light by addressing our lectures to be a level down in quality. I was
confused enough to decide whether to be happy or sad, although, I continued
hearing the next remarks in the line. Like a typical head-on authority, he successfully
boosted us and simultaneously downgraded us. I gave up on my stand and
preferred reading the wisdom lines written on the library walls. That’s when my
phone abruptly beeped; it was a message saying that covid tests were being done
for free in my residential area. I was alarmed with this news and also suspicious
about the kind of rapid kit test quality we had in our country. By the time I decide
over the covid issue, principal declared the meeting to be over. We gathered together
under the banyan tree to see a sample lecture video made by one of our boosting
colleagues, keeping aside the distancing rules which were sophisticatedly followed
till a minute before in the meeting. I realized that even if I manage to stand
on the toe thumb, I wouldn’t see the video hence I decided to walk down the
ground till my rikshaw uncle turned up. While I was peacefully strolling in the
green, mam Z called me loudly and hastily to the location she was staring at. I
ran towards her with amusement peaking in my mind. I stood there with a sigh of
relief to see a lawn of tiny whitish mushrooms contrasting the dark soil. I in-acted
as a professional photographer and started capturing photos settling myself in distinctly
odd poses. In the climax one, I was almost in a sleeping pose, horizontally on
the ground, so as to click a side view of the mushrooms, just when a distant
voice came in saying that it is a house for snakes too. I was startled and in a
fraction of second my head stood up straight facing the sky just like a needle
in the compass suddenly resetting towards north and my heart pounding out of my
ribs. I managed hiding my terror and convincingly assured mam Z, that we had
got enough photos and will forward them to her soon. She drove happily back
home and I cautiously walked on the tarred road until soon I was back seated in
the auto rickshaw, heading towards sweet home. On the way, rickshaw uncle got a
phone call from his bank for an urgent pension work and we took a halt in the
bank parking lot. I slept in the rikshaw enough to realize that one hour had
already passed away. I jumped on the seat and hurriedly phone called rick
uncle, he returned at once and dropped me home. After reaching home, I was
expelled from the living room and re-directed towards the bathroom for a cleaning
up process as a part of covid precautionary measure. Meanwhile, my phone kept
beeping. To my astonishment, one of the senior teachers plainly thought out of somewhere
that it was my birthday, and he wished me on the university group which was
followed by a number of wishes from the other teachers in the university. I was
overwhelmed by the wishes forgetting for a moment that it wasn’t the day I was
born but coming back to senses, I responded on the group letting others know
that it was a date misunderstanding. However, I was ignored, the wishes
continued to rain in the group and soon we all were celebrating my e-birthday
on one fine lockdown evening of July out of no-where. While I was religiously
reverting to the wishes, my ‘maasi’ called me to tell that her son (my brother)
will come to fetch a thermos, which we had an extra, for his dad. Well, ‘Dev’ uncle
by name seemed immortal but paradoxical was his personality. Since the day the
covid phase began, every news that flashed in as a possible cure was experimented
by panicked Dev uncle on himself. He wouldn’t leave any stone unturned viz.,
the ‘kadha’ saga, the multi vitamin episodes, vitamin C flush, the Ayurveda
season, the pool of green tea, the brain ‘steaming’ sessions, the medicine
pellet boxed racks and now was the time for hot water fluxes. My mom ordered me
to hunt the thermos in the storage cabinet near the ceiling, and I obediently climbed
the stool, then the table and then in a midway, cliff-hung state of being
partially supported by the stool and partially
by the table, just to find that thermos wasn’t on the top rack but was safely
kept in the bed storage compartment, I upturned, safely landed on the floor and
packed a pair of thermoses, one small, one big, only to be sure if he needed an
extra-one to keep the green tea hot too for the day. Just when all the packing
was kept in a ready-to-go state, ‘maasi’ called once again saying that due
to heavy rains my brother may or may not turn up. I breathed deep and lay down
my anatomical organs on the large, rectangular pad designed for supporting the
reclining-confused body and popularly called as a mattress, soon to find myself
dead asleep.
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