Goggles In Space

My grandmother turned 90in June2020. A cake was cut in the presence of her 3 surviving children and a couple of grandkid .She was perfectly healthy with good eyesight ,hearing, able to do things on her own ,and last but not least very sharp memory, recollecting all incidents time and again. However, after 3-4 months, her condition began to deteriorate. We had gone from BLR to Kerala due to COVD WFH in September, so after about a month of quarantine, we visited her with amma. She was happy but could feel her health wasn't great. She was happy because she was with her fav daughter but also said that she was away from her other fav child, Balu mama and his grandkids. She feels aches in different parts of her body and needed someone by her side for massaging. She didn't do the daily prayers, was not interested in SOP serials anymore and wanted to lie down always. So home nurse was arranged. As luck would have it, not one has stayed till now for more than a month with her in spite o...

For past couple of months, it has been overwhelming to see posts on FB, LinkedIn and across social media about the lives taken by COVID. The deadly virus is affecting the old and the young now. Last year , if it was mostly fear, this year the new variants of the virus have really taken a toll on people, creating havoc. COVID time would surely be etched in history as a Dark Era.  While US ,UK and many other nations have vaccinated 50% of their crowd, India's vaccination is at snail's pace. Thanks to our government and of course the huge population. I don't keep track of the death numbers but hearing the death of friend's friends, parents/siblings/inlaws of known people is heart wrenching Sree's classmate died recently. Sadly, we don't even have enough infrastructure to even bury or burn these people. Nannu was in Manipal Hospital for about 2 weeks with Oxygen mask to help his breathing but he didn't go too critical. So going back to the first line of this blo...

This is ONLY a figment of my imagination, fueled by the many deaths all around. Newspaper, watsapp forwards, chat with friends - its all about this COVID 19 virus and its variants. It attacked me first time in Feb'21 but not day was spent at the hospital.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know this is too early to write but somehow i feel the pandemic would eat me - a lung infection ,unable to find a hospital bed, oxygen supply. I dread to think how painful it would be to die after battling breathlessness. Would i want to fight infections ,probably losing an important function or body part in the process ? Would i be willing for Oxygen masks throughout life due to weak lungs ? Would i want to drain out all the money we have accumulated over time for education and our retirement ? I cannot even think of witnessing any death in the family dying nor can i stand it. I am very scared to die but even more scared of a lonely ...

Today is achan's third death anniversary . He was too early to die in 2018 ! He was born around Onam time and left us around Vishu ,making sure around both these happy occasions we remember him. From when i remember, he has been a tall, fit 70kg figure spending time in the backyard during the only Sundays he had a day off from work. He had few vices though - first was alcohol was a weakness but never to the extend it interfered with our life and second was spending money. He was very fond of investing in the single house he owned and even before a bonus or extra money would come, he would plan for it. He was by nature a spendthrift and never believed in saving up for my marriage or their retirement or never planned along with amma. After Hari became sick in 2009 and the umpteen unsuccessful efforts to get him back to normalcy, achan was never his normal self. He was always drenched in a whirlpool of alcohol and his personality underwent a drastic change. He was angry at everything,...