Ten Things About 2020: My 'Keep', 'Discard' and 'Maybe' Piles from the Year of the Pandemic

Back in the days before we had heard of something called COVID 19, Tuesdays and Thursdays were ballet class days for my little girl. Wednesdays and Fridays, the elder one went to Karate. Saturdays both attended an art class. Sundays were our hangout days - a trip to the park, pastries at our favourite cafe or a movie. Our days were carefully apportioned into school time, activities time and fun time. Every day when I picked them up after school, I would ask 'so how was school today?' and they would mechanically reply, 'it was ok.' Sometimes (rarely), they would talk about something that excited them or disappointed them that day. And then, suddenly, in the unique landscape that was 2020, time lay before us like an infinite stretch of untamed, unfenced grassland. There was no trodden path to follow and no markers pointing out the way. So we simply walked, hand in hand. And I heard stories about school I had never heard before: about arguments with friends; the time one got picked on by a class bully and the time an unexpected person did something nice for the other. I heard about little crushes and insecurities. And all this without my ever having to ask, 'so what was school like, today?'

2020 was the kind of year no one could have imagined. And yet we lived through it, adapted to it, worked our way around it as best as we could. It proved once again that nothing can quite extinguish the longing of the human spirit to find joy in existence and to find a path forward however difficult it may look. There are things that fell into place so naturally that I would love for them to continue to be part of our lives. And then there are things I would be glad to see the back of, forever! There are also a few that I can't make up my mind about, stuff that looked attractive in parts but sticks out as a whole. Out of the top 10 things that defined 2020 for me, personally. here is my categorisation of what I would want to continue, what I definitely don't wish to see again and what I am unsure about.

Keep

1. School @ home: At least 3 months out of the academic year is monsoon season in Kerala. In a normal school year, anything from 3 to 10 working days are declared holidays on account of rain. On many other days, I have watched with anxiety as the skies burst open or the winds raged just about the time the kids would be on the bus back home. With the experience of this past year, why not think of having online sessions instead of classroom learning during the worst of the monsoon season? Pin it down to separation anxiety but I think I really would enjoy having the kids around a bit more when life gets back to 'normal.'
2. The new normal in our eating habits: For want of help and anxiety about the availability of resources, one of the first steps we took to adapt to the lockdown was to let go of elaborate meals. Whatever was on the table, everyone would eat. No more individual breakfasts and fastidiousness at lunch. This was also a time I got the opportunity to lay down the law when it came to kids and veggies. They have a new-found discipline when it comes to food and a better appreciation for the effort that goes into making it. This is something I definitely intend to take forward.
3. Books becoming more central to our days: The one thing I am happiest about is to see the kids voraciously go through their books. With limited avenues to spend their time and energies on, they spent more and more time reading. My 7-year-old is almost up to the 11-year-old's level when it comes to reading because of the sheer amount of time they had in hand. The quality of their reading has also vastly improved as they started digging deeper into our bookshelves when they ran out of unread ones on their own. Definitely a keeper.
4. Sharing household responsibilities: When my little one learned to fold a towel in kindergarten, I was impressed but never thought it would come in handy any time soon. Now my kids systematically fold their own clothes and put them away in their cupboard without help or supervision. In a normal school year, it would not even have occurred to me to ask them to do chores around the house. This year demonstrated just how much we underestimate children and how much more efficiently things work when we act as a team. I was also able to explain to them why it was never 'helping' around the house but 'doing your bit', now and always.
5. Talking the talk: In 2020, I realised that quality time is what happens when you are not actively plotting for it to happen. With deadlines losing all meaning and no one in a hurry to be anywhere, we found ourselves sitting around talking a lot more than before. My children understood for the first time that I had a life before them - they know where I went to college and that before I was their mother, I had a childhood home with pets and audio cassettes and fights with my siblings. I heard from my mother about things that broke her heart as a child - her childhood friend who did not have anything to eat at lunch and her disgust at a teacher who openly leered at one of her classmates. Time brought out the storyteller in us all. We grew into attentive listeners and respectful audiences. And I don't wish to see that come to a stop.

PC: Tobias Baumgaertner on Instagram. One of the defining images of 2020, depicting compassion and companionship in two widowed penguins sharing a moment of solidarity and comfort. Definitely a 'keepsake' of the year

Discard

1. The reluctance to have human interactions: In pre-pandemic days, Zomato was strictly an occasional convenience. With the lockdown, delivery apps and online grocery options got me into the habit of avoiding human contact, whenever I could. How great it was not to have to explain what you need or stand in a queue with an overflowing shopping cart! Even once the restrictions were lifted I found myself reluctant to step out into the real world. The highly sanitised, impersonal and increasingly virtual world of 2020 was easy to get used to but I intend to work this out of my system in 2021. I want to get used again to faces and tones of voice - friendly and morose, helpful and grating - human life in all its variety.
2. The obsession with cooking in general and cooking bigger and better in particular: I don't know of any kid above 4 who made it through the lockdown without baking their first cake. My own little girl, a complete kitchen novice who was scared to be anywhere near the gas stove has learned to make pancakes, french toast, cakes and even a somewhat passable pizza. I want it to stop! She is 11. I would rather she scatter her toys on the floor and drive me mad like she used to. When I go online, I find so much discussion about food that it is disconcerting. My idlis were perfectly okay before someone taught me how to add two additional hours of effort to make them "super soft." I think we will manage just fine the old way.
3. Children and social media: My children would not have been anywhere near my phone or laptop at their present age, if not for the necessities of this period. Without school and birthday parties and playdates, of course, they learned the basics of navigating social media. I hate that they have started wondering if they are behind the times for not changing their classroom profile pics every week and why they haven't been allowed to create 'online avatars.' Once this is all over, they go right back to being cave-people when it comes to gadgets and social media. 

PC: Google Images. One of the defining images of the year that symbolised fear and anxiety (though also resilience and dedication.) I would not be sad to see this one disappear from our collective memory. 

Maybe

1. Less is Fine: I was six months into a weight loss regimen where I had sworn off new clothes till I reached my ideal weight when the lockdown struck. So that means I went over a year without shopping for clothes for myself and 9 months without buying anything new for the kids. Did it affect the quality of our lives? No. Did it affect our happiness? No. But am I ready to give up the high of the occasional shopping binge? I am not entirely sure. I am aware the planet is crying out for us to use less and spend less. I am also aware of how much my debit card would have thanked me during this time. I am not entirely sure I have the willpower to stick with this course but...I am seriously wondering if a 'slow down' is not warranted in the light of all that came to pass in 2020.
2. Virtual bonding: With everyone feeling lonely, cut off and isolated in their own little islands of fear, there was so much more of an effort to reach out and reconnect this year. I even had a phone conversation with an old batchmate where I spent half the time thinking she was someone else and the other half making up for the mistake. In 2020, we reached out like never before. We saw each other's homes on our screens, defenses lowered, vulnerabilities exposed, and we were fine with that. Will that continue to be so in post-pandemic life? I doubt it. I doubt we will any more have the inclination to go soul-searching with someone we haven't thought about since grade 3. But would I like it to continue? Sure! At least with those with whom we have already made some progress. Those whose presence brought some additional element of warmth in our lives.

PC: https://www.biocycle.net/food-waste-reduction-strategies-k-12-schools/
Definitely on the wish list for the coming year is to cut out excesses in life - whether it be food, clothes, or even emotion. Can I? Can we? 

It is a new calendar year but we don't know yet how much is going to change effectively. There is a good chance at least the first half of 2021 will be an extension of the past 9 months. That is ok, we are prepared as best as we can be. Now what we need are some tools to readjust to old realities, or maybe build ourselves a whole new reality altogether. One that has more light and air in it, more talks and laughter, more time spent together without planning to spend time together. I guess that was what 'quality time' really was about all along.

Life, love and death. On my balcony.

Goldie died, Friday morning. The bright green-and-yellow lovebird had come into our lives a year ago, along with Aqua, a blue-and-white beauty - a gift for my children from their grand aunt. We had up until then enforced a no-pets rule in the house that the children had found utterly unfair. I would point at the heaps of toys scattered all over the house, the mess of craft projects and their untidy study tables and tell them I already had too much on my plate to handle another living creature in our cluttered life. On a visit to my Uncle and Aunt's, the kids had been fascinated by their cages full of chirping lovebirds and pigeons and my Aunt promised to give them a pair, later, when she came to visit us sometime. I mentally thanked her for diplomatically handling the situation without disappointing the kids. Little did I know that months later, when my cousins were home on their annual visit from abroad, she would send over a pair, as promised. I could not bring myself to turn the gift down. And thus we found ourselves, pet owners. 

Aqua and Goldie, our original pair. with their new-found yellow mates in the initial days

Love, action, drama

It was my friend Mekha's Dad who first pointed out that the pair were not a couple - they were both the same sex. I shrugged and did not think too much of it - until he showed up the next day with a pair of bright yellow lovebirds for Aqua and Goldie to pair up with. It is not healthy for them not to have mates, he said. They might end up fighting and killing each other for no reason. And thus our bird family grew. The girls, at the time besotted with their Dad's latest movie, named the newcomers Kochunni and Pakki. In a few weeks, Kochunni had paired off with the blue Aqua and Pakki with the green Goldie.

The girls were dedicated to the cause of 'domesticating' them. They would spend hours talking to them, reading to them, singing to them. Now lovebirds are not the best pet material if you are looking for moments like them cuddling up to you or showing affection or even allowing themselves to be touched or petted. The most we got out of them was that they would huddle towards the feeding bowl when they saw any of us, whether they were already fed or not. Over a period of time, the kids started losing interest in these not-too-friendly pets. And then one day magic happened. 

In one of the earthen pots we had put up for their nests was a bright, shiny little egg! The entire house - including my mother who is famously averse to animals of any sort - was filled with a kind of eagerness and curiosity. There is just something about new life - in any form - that makes you feel hopeful and optimistic about everything. 20 days later, there he was - a tiny, pink blob of flesh that looked like it may be crushed if we so much as looked too hard at it! Our first bird baby - what else could we name him but 'Chicky?!  That soon metamorphosed into Chickadoo. We were besotted by him and mesmerized with the marvels unfolding before our eyes every day - the first crop of downy white appearing on the pink skin, which soon deepened into a pale green as he grew bigger and stronger with each passing day. 

Our first baby, Chickadoo, the day he was born.
(you may need to look real hard to spot him)

Pakki and Goldie in Exile

Did I mention that it was Kochunni and Aqua who were the proud parents of our little Chickadoo? It was only when Kochunni, named after the legendary thief of Kayamkulam, laid an egg that we realised we had got their genders mixed up in the beginning! Not that it made any difference to their bird lives but to us, humans, the names were too entrenched in our minds to change them now! The reason why this clarification is important is because Pakki, the other female, smaller and more fierce, one day decided that little Chickadoo was an unnecessary addition to the group. She sneaked into the pot and pecked him hard on his little neck. There was panic and fear in the household when we realised our baby bird was badly hurt. We untied Chickadoo's earthen nest and carried him, pot and all, to the Pet Hospital nearby. The vet carefully cleaned out his wounds and told us he would make it but the aggressive female needed to be removed from the cage. 

It was time for Pakki's banishment. We decided it would be too harsh to put her in exile all by herself, so we also transferred her mate, Goldie, along with her to a smaller cage we had. Now I should tell you a little bit about Goldie. To me, he seemed like the bird equivalent of Sanjeev Kumar from the old Hindi movies - the kind who would look on with immeasurable affection even as his wife did something crazy. Now the hero and his petulant girlfriend found themselves cut off from the habitat they were used to, although the cages were placed side by side. As Chickadoo healed in peace under our loving, tender care, Pakki and Goldie glowered from their little holding cell. 

Taking care of little Chickadoo gave us a little bit of that 'cuddly pet' feeling we had missed with the birds so far. We stroked his little head as we put drops in his mouth through a filler and watched with pride as he stepped out of his little pot-nest one fine day, all on his own! I think the girls and I were far more proud than Aqua and Kochunni that day! We were in fact a little peeved with the pair of them for not doing enough to protect their chick from his jealous aunt's attacks (yup, we had a whole Disney movie going on in our collective imagination.) Things were going pretty ok, until the next unexpected twist. Pakki laid an egg. 

Pakki and Goldie Return

There were no nesting pots in the little cage. We had not given that much thought to Pakki and Goldie's needs when we moved them out of the larger cage - after all, they were in disgrace. But there was the egg, rolling slowly on the floor of the bare cage and Goldie seemed to be looking at us with accusing eyes. Within the hour, the egg was carefully shifted to Pakki's old pot and the pair of jailbirds (don't you love a good pun when it springs at you? I do!) were put back in with their former roommates. Pakki went berserk for a short while, flying around aggressively screeching and apparently trying to terrorise Aqua and Kochunni out of their lives. But for some reason, she stayed resolutely away from Chickadoo this time. He was now quite capable of looking after himself too. She laid claim to both pots, not allowing Kochunni near either of them. But she could not keep this up for long. After some venting in this fashion, she finally decided on one and settled into it. It was the empty one. 

Pakki had turned her back on the egg she laid in exile. Thankfully for that little egg, Kochunni laid an egg herself in the next couple of days. She unintentionally started incubating her rival's egg too. Pakki herself went on to lay three more eggs in that batch. As fate would have it, the only egg that successfully hatched in Kochunni's pot this time was the rogue, discarded egg. Out came little Mimi, all pretty and blue and Kochunni seemed none too wiser to her origins. She and Aqua doted on her just like they had little Chickadoo.

Meanwhile, Goldie was showering Pakki with care and affection as she patiently incubated her own brood. Soon, we had beautiful little Lily and clownish-looking Bobo join the pack. Pakki and Goldie tended to their babies like perfect parents and this time there was no pecking or attacking. The three new chicks seemed to bond and it was the cutest sight to see them huddled up together. Only poor Chickadoo, lonesome survivor of his batch, continued to be lonely.

Our new babies huddling together. The yellow flecked with a little green
in the center is Lily, the beauty. Trying to join in the huddle is Chickadoo. 

Death makes its first uninvited stop

One morning, for no apparent reason, little Lily stopped breathing. She had been the prettiest in the cage - vivid yellow with just a dash of green thrown in. She was my favourite, the one I had sworn not to give away when the time came. The kids and I had agreed that we would not keep more than six birds at a time. We would keep Chickadoo and Lily. Mimi and Bobo would go to another home. There was never any question of giving away our original four - Kochunni and Aqua; Pakki and Goldie. And then Lily died. Just like that. For no reason. 

Our hearts were broken that day. All of us kept looking into the cage as if Lily was just going to pop out of one of the pots again, like we had seen her do all these days. But Lily had already taken flight. Out of our home and hearts and into an unknown dimension. Our first loss.

I told the kids angrily that this was one of the main reasons I had not wanted pets in the first place. They die. They steal your affections and then die. Leaving little knots in your throat when they should have been happily flitting around in their cage.

The kids were truly shaken by Lily's loss too. It took them a while to start reading and singing to the birds again. I hoped the birds would not get into another breeding season any time soon. I was done with all that excitement. I wanted less of them in the cage and in our lives. 

Life Goes On

Kochunni was the first to start laying again. But for some reason, she decided she was not ready for another round of babies. She methodically threw each egg she laid out of the pot. I have no idea what brought on that behavior. Had she known all along that the last baby she raised was not really hers? (More likely, she was suffering from calcium deficiency, Mekha's Dad said. But we humans will always look for human explanations to everything around us.) 

Birds really do seem to have a mind of their own. Kochunni did not want babies right now. And out went 4 shiny eggs. My daughters were angry with her. I told them it was her body, her life, her decision. Also, that they should not attribute human thoughts and emotions to the actions of animals. (though that is exactly what I had been doing, within my own mind.)

Then Pakki started laying too. She is incubating her latest clutch as I write this. We don't know which of those will hatch and which of the hatchlings will survive. What we do know is that this time around, Pakki is on her own. Goldie left to join his little girl, two days ago. Just like in Lily's case, we don't really know why. 

Goldie's last morning

Friday morning, before the girls settled into their online classes, I opened the door to the balcony where the birdcage is. We, the girls and I, had an impromptu session of chatting up the birds. They came towards the feeding bowls as they usually do when they see us. Goldie was clutching at the cage bars as he usually does. I put a finger in and touched his soft tummy. He did not threaten me with his beak or even flit away as usual. 'What's up with Goldie today? He seems friendly,' I told the girls. They tested out my hypothesis by also reaching in with their fingers in and stroking the bright green feathers. He let himself be stroked - it was most un-Goldie of him! Then it was time for their classes and we moved on to our day.

A little while later we noticed him sitting on the floor of the cage - very uncharacteristic of him and our first warning signal. Our hearts sank a little when we saw him sitting there, breathing heavily, feathers puffed, quite immobile. We knew then that he was sick, quite sick. Pakki came out of the pot a couple of times, leaving her precious eggs alone for a few moments at a time to sit by her mate. She pecked him gently on the head and nudged him with her beak as he sat there, painfully melting away before our eyes. Then she went back into her pot for the final time. Before online sessions were over for the day, Goldie had keeled over to the side, silent and motionless. Pakki did not come out of the pot thereafter.

We bid a tearful goodbye to our little friend of the past year, our stoic Sanjeev Kumar bird, wondering what Pakki would do now; whether she would miss her partner when the babies were born. I reminded myself to not attribute human thoughts and emotions to the birds but I cannot help feeling a pang in my heart every time I see the little yellow head peering out of the pot. I can see the other birds take food to her - they seem to understand she needs them now. Maybe in time one of them will fill in for Goldie. 

The girls were told by their father that Goldie was having a party with Lily right now - how they must have missed each other! They seemed to find joy in that thought. I think I might too. 

Whenever anyone asked my opinion about having pets, I have always discouraged them. I would tell them about having to clean up poop and wash smelly bowls. About disgusting messes and unwanted responsibility. I think I should start telling them about life in its infinite variety and immense drama unfolding before our eyes. About children learning how to be responsible for something other than themselves. And how they learn to deal with life. And death. And love. Even if it breaks their little hearts every now and then.

My devoted little girl reading to her birds

PS: We still have all the birds that survived, chicks and all. The idea was that we would give them away when they got to be too much for us. That day isn't here, just yet. 

Masks Off!

I got an invite the other day to be part of one of those videos family and friends groups are making these days to have a bit of fun and togetherness in the lockdown period. I have seen several of those on Facebook. Some of them looked really nice and I complimented the makers and hit like on their creativity and camaraderie. But I turned down the invite. I have been accused of many things over the years but I don't think being 'fun' was ever part of them - not in the recent past anyway!

"When did you get so shy?' I was asked. "We still remember you dancing on stage in college." Yup. I have done that. Danced to 'Rangeela' on stage. I have even participated in a couple of beauty pageants. You heard that right! This was before everyone and their grand aunt knew exactly how tall and how wide you needed to be to get a foot in the door of those. What can I say? I went to college in less complicated times! (And I can't be thankful enough for the lack of phone cameras back then!) And I had a lot more...what do you call it...confidence? Courage? What really is an apt translation for that bang-on-the-nail Malayalam word "tholikkatti"? Just calling it "thicker skin" doesn't seem to capture the spirit of it! Maybe my 'fun' quotient just got exhausted with all that constant effort to be in the centre of everything! Or maybe it had something to do with the vicious event of ragging that happened when I left the comfortable environs of CMS College - which was practically home! -  and my home town and landed up in Law College, Ernakulam. One that ended with me breaking down in the middle of the road surrounded by a group of male seniors who considered it their divine right and duty 'to bring me down a peg.' That was the first time I realized the inherent difference between 'the way you see yourself' and 'the way the world looks at you.' (as immortalised in many a meme these days*). I saw myself as cool and fun. They did not. It is an inevitable phase in growing up - the first hard knock that teaches you to take an objective look at yourself.

[*Scroll to the bottom for an example. Or just read on and you will get there 😀]

Three years later, the venue shifted to National Law School, Bangalore. For the first time I realised that I spoke English 'like a Malayali.' And dressed like one too. Apparently, this was nothing to be proud of. And that was confusing because I had taken pride in both, up to that point. If Law College gifted me a Bachelor's Degree in toning down, Law School handed me my Master's in blending in.

At my first job, I was told I looked like 'an aunty' because I still sported gold jewelry on an everyday basis. (This was back when I still believed I needed to wear my 'thali' on a chain to be a good wife and a couple of bangles to show myself to be a good daughter.) When I went through a phase, early in my marriage, of 'not wanting kids' I was incredulously informed by one of my colleagues that I did not '*look* like someone who could have that kind of an attitude.' This was brand new information to me - as a bindi-sporting, kurta-wearing, bangles-jangling kind of a person, I was expected to be conservative and docile or in any case, anything but radical! What a blow to my feminist underpinnings! Funny thing is, a few years later, I shed the attitude as well as the bindi and the bangles but I did go on to have two lovely kids, so go figure!

What I am driving at here is not that 'life' turned me into a bitter, un-fun person! Oh no! What I mean is, it took me a long time to figure out what I really was (which is basically and unapologetically 'un-fun.') For the better part of early adulthood, you are more concerned about how you are perceived than what you really are. You try to change, adapt, mould yourself to be better liked, better accepted. At some point you realise, however hard you try, there is still a huge difference between what you are trying to project and what is being perceived about you. The best thing about being above forty is that you finally realise there is absolutely no way you can control perceptions and what suits you best is to be comfortable with yourself, just the way you are. And I am not comfortable in front of a camera. Period. I spent an entire 12-day trip with two millennials who wanted to capture the spirit of the trip every minute through Insta videos. I was happy to help them do it. Without being in even one. It's just the way it is. And right now, right this way, I am having the kind of fun that I actually enjoy, from the depths of my heart, without undue worry about how that might cause people to look at me.

Social media has turned us all into 'performers' on some level. Some sing, some dance, some give cutting political insight and others make YouTube videos on cooking. I blog. Each of us awaits validation from our social circle by way of comments and likes. Most of us are lucky enough to stay within our own social bubbles and be insulated from the harsh reality of online haters and anonymous trolls. That does not mean we are not being judged and perceived quite differently from what we are trying to project. ('Really? Her? When the hell did she becomes a singer/dancer/political commentator/chef/writer?') All you can do is to keep true and enjoy what you do. As for me, I absolutely try to stay away from anything I am not comfortable doing. Because I can handle being judged for what I believe in. Not for anything else.

Oh...and before I sign off, here is one those memes I referred to earlier 😊

(Image Courtesy: http://www.amreading.com/wp-content/uploads/Freelance-writer-meme.jpg)