“Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.”― Kilroy J. Oldster
A little boy’s toys were visible on the window sill when the soft brown velvety curtain was drawn. I looked out for the boy this morning, in the afternoon and the evening. I awaited his presence as I cooked dinner for the family but the curtains remained drawn.
The boy had appeared on the window sill every morning since the first wave of Pandemic. He was thin and fair with a charming smile. His little tuft of hair had grown into long locks of curls during the first wave of the pandemic making him look like a maestro. He not very tall when the Pandemic began but now he was taller. He wasn’t very fluent in his speech then but he would hang out on the window sill speaking loudly the whole day. He would call out for his friends. The boy lived in the opposite building that was hardly twenty feet away from ours. The window is visible from our living room and kitchen. He would yell and call out for his friends who lived on the first floor, fourth floor and others. They would come out and yell from their windows or the balcony and then they would giggle and chatter for ages. We could hear the conversation but could never see all of them.
After the first wave of the Pandemic in India, the children had begun coming out fearlessly. They would sport a mask but play carelessly. It was endless fun and frolic. The little boy on the window would bend cautiously to watch the fun. He would yell and clap. He would shriek in joy watching his friends play football but would go down only when his mother accompanied him. Those days I could hear his voice rant in the air. The kids who were in their teens would play less, stroll more and laugh exuberantly. Those younger than the teens were boisterous and would have a tremendous time running hither thither. The little boy was less than five. He played with the other small children in the lawned garden. They had their cricket kits and a stream of bicycles artistically parked for intermittent cycling.
The onset of the second wave in India made children susceptible. One fine day, one of the flat members sent a message informing all that he and his family including his ten-year-old daughter were declared positive with COVID 19 disease. Within a couple of days, a few more families fell sick with COVID 19. The reasons for contracting the disease differed but the affliction was the same. People said the variant virus was powerful and more infectious A notice was hurriedly passed asking parents to not send their children out to play. Children missed their friends and empathised with the sick friends.
Each day the count of COVID 19 cases doubled, tripled and quadruplicated. Two-year-olds were suffering from lung infections and older ones with pneumonia. There was a growing number of children in need of oxygen too. Children had grown quiet sensing the anxiety of the adults. There were scores of new COVID cases every day and an overwhelming number of deaths, the lost ones were dear friends, family, acquaintance, breadwinners, fathers, mothers, grandparents, and dear children whom their parents had adored profoundly. People were numb with grief, a dull pain throbbed in their hearts but they had prayers on their lips.
The government came up with another lockdown and everything shut down once again. Everyone feared and stayed home but the trash pickers worked regularly just as the front line workers. They cleaned the surroundings, sprayed disinfectants, and picked the trash from the houses of the COVID home isolated patients. One could see junk pickers early in the mornings near the garbage bins set up by the municipality. They had no masks or gloves. They used their hands to scour the garbage, the crows and dogs near the bin would get annoyed and a low bark would follow the crows’ harsh caws.
Life came back to a square with the second wave, the little boy was back on the window. He was taller, his hair had been cut probably before the salons shut down. He sat silently and looked on but never called out to his friends for there were a few who were sick and others who were recovering. The school online classes did not carry the same zest as it was time for vacations and each school had a few teachers who were ailing or coming out of their loss. Many times, the little boy played alone in the tent house at home, we could see him balancing his feet on the window as he tried to place back the flattened tent house on the loft adjacent to the window.
The Children in India remained uncomplaining, sympathetic, and caged at home for months till the second wave started lowering and life began limping back to normalcy in June. The lockdown was gradually lifted and the kids were back to the playground. They met the friends who had been sick. They hugged their friends as they realised that the pandemic could have been worse. The little boy now had no time to spend his time on the window. He had grown taller during the second wave and wanted to play with his friends. Perhaps, that was the reason I missed him. When surrounded by grief find solace in sports, friends and spend more time in nature.
“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.”― Nicholas Sparks,
Comments
Post a Comment