Category Archives: random thoughts

Little Deep Breaths

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Sometimes life brings you to a standstill. A complete, terrible standstill. You eat, to survive and not because you love to. You try to read and write and draw because you want to come of the loop. The thinking loop that you are continually stuck onto, like it’s the only song on your playlist that plays on repeat. Slowly, your heart starts pounding, faster than usual. Closing your eyes at night is a task in itself, for when those eyes shut – your thoughts amplify, speaking louder than it does during the day. Someone sneezes mid sleep and you wake up wide eyed. Someone else gets up for a little pee in the middle of night, and you rush to them, asking if everything is fine.

That is what anxiety does to you. It creeps up to you without you knowing how far up it has reached already. By the time the realization finally dawns on you, panic has hijacked your mind. It has crept up to the point wherein you do not feel in control of your own body or thoughts. You start to feel helpless, like the world around you is crumbling, along with your hopes and dreams. Your first urge is to give up, and why wouldn’t it be? Isn’t that the easier option? But that is your real test, it is at that exact moment when you need to take a step back and focus on the feeble voice far off towards the end of your vision that tells you to keep going. Well, it might sound unreal at first. For a while let’s just pretend it is real, and take some deep breaths. Those deep breaths wouldn’t make any difference immediately, but it will help you pause, few minutes at a time. It’ll allow you to reconsider your thoughts and help you in breaking their flow. One deep breath at a time.

Heyyaa people! How are you all doing? I’ve missed you loads and I have missed blogging. Hopefully I am back here now. I don’t have a plan yet on what my future posts would be about, but I am happy to be back. It’s much more peaceful than the buzz on other social media platforms.

– Suri

To New Beginnings

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I was once travelling in a car, I do not recollect what day it was or month, but the scenes I see so clearly. The house, our house, my friends’ houses, our playground, our school, our market, our grocery shop still flashes across, like a happy memory, yet distant, someplace I’ll never set foot again, at least not for long at a time.

There was a time when everything was different, and there soon will be a time when everything will be different, again. As I leave, I try to imprint as much as I can in my head, the blossoming of the gulmohars and the ripening of the mangoes in summer, the harsh and wet rains, the sole fabric of extra layering required in the winters. I think I’ll miss our neighbourhood crows, parrots and pigeons too, for they kept me going when times were dull. I hope to fix up these happy memories in my eyes so as to remember and revisit the place forever and ever, without having to come back. The sad ones can be wiped out, or if possible be burned up, to never be restored again.

A sparrow sitting on the branch of a Gulmohar tree, adjacent to our apartment
(which unfortunately fell during the rains this year)

— Suri

Quarantine Musings #14

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2 am in a city, during lockdown, feels completely out of place. Except for the sound of crickets and frogs, I can now hear absolutely nothing.

Mumbai – fondly called as the city which never sleeps; is now sleeping. It feels that not just the people residing here, but the city in itself is suffering from the disease. I hope she heals well and wakes up sooner from her nap. People are waiting for her to heal, the railways are waiting, the airplanes, the local businesses, the big multinational companies; everyone is counting on her.

On another occasion, it would have felt way better- to experience the silence within a city, the calmness and the fresh air to breath. But under the current crisis, it just doesn’t feel good.

Get well soon, Aamchi Mumbai (literally, ‘Our Mumbai’). And also, get well soon, Mother Earth.

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #13

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  • My armour against COVID-19 and the rains!

So finally, the rains have arrived in Mumbai! Of course they were here even before, but what are rains without a ‘heavy rainfall orange/ red alert’ or without news of waterlogging in the city?

I had to go outside yesterday, to buy essentials, amidst the rains. It was raining cats and dogs! It was fun though – to go outside after a long while and even more fun to feel the rain falling on you. I’ve always liked the rains (without the thundering, of course).

But one thing became quite clear to me, rains and face masks don’t go well together; unless you’re carrying an umbrella – which I wasn’t. I had a raincoat on and so my mask was completely drenched with rainwater by the time I returned home.

I haven’t traveled outside a 2 km (about 1.3 miles) radius since mid March due to the lockdown restrictions. When was the last time you traveled a farther distance other than for the usual ‘grocery shopping’?

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #12

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It’s almost three months of us now, living under lockdown over here.

But do I see a change? A decline in the number of cases, perhaps? – Not really. Not a bit. In fact, the figures are skyrocketing, making new daily records each new day.

The lockdown is now slowly ‘unlocking’, giving relief to some business owners. But instead of being more cautious, the people are now starting to care even less.

Hearing about all these cases in our neighborhood itself is giving me a fright! If I wasn’t already OCD, I’ll turn more like it by the time this pandemic ends.

How’s the situation in your neighborhood/ city/ town/ country? Hope you are all doing well. Sending loads and loads of good wishes and warm virtual hugs. 🤗

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #11

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Monsoon in Mumbai feels so eerily different this year. Each year after bearing the scorching heat of the summers, we find ourselves longing for the rains. This year the longing phase was so abrupt.

Of course, this may not be the actual onset of the monsoons, it might just be a by-product of the Nisarga cyclone (which I had mentioned in my previous post Quarantine Musings #9 )- which quite conveniently has dodged (and saved us!) away from the city to other parts of the state.

We have been receiving these pre-monsoon showers for a good four days at a stretch. And yet we already have the hashtag #MumbaiRains trending on Twitter!

As local trains aren’t running anymore (except for essentials), in light of the current lockdown guidelines – I wonder whether we would still be hearing news of waterlogging on the railway tracks, like each year?

Monsoons remind us Mumbaikars of bhajiis and vada pavs and garam garam (hot) chaai (tea). This year instead of buying it from those roadside stalls, shops and tapris, we’ll have to savour them by cooking it up inside our own kitchens. Now that should surely be a healthy change!

Wishing you all a Happy Monsoon!

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #10

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I miss the beaches

and the mountains.

I miss our esplanade

the Marine Drive.

I miss the rides

to the markets and the malls.

I miss the bookstores

the smell of new books.

I miss the freedom

to just walk, and walk and walk.

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #9

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What would you do if someone tells you that you only have a couple of hours to live? – Me? I don’t think I would do anything different, other than being grateful for everything I am blessed with.

Don’t worry, things are fine over here as of now. We are expecting a cyclone in some hours, on top of us living in the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in our country. Monsoon has apparently arrived earlier than expected. Yesterday morning we woke up with the pleasant petrichor of the early morning – first – rain of the season. It’s cloudy since yesterday, which is kind of a sudden change in the climate after a really hot summer in May. Take care, folks!

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #8

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I wonder when would people stop politicising things, stop accusing and blaming each other at least during such delicate, unprecedented times.

I wonder when will people come together as one, and cooperate- to plan for a peaceful future.

If we could achieve that, then it would be like winning a small battle.

If all of us take the initiative, standing together – strong and united – we might as well overcome the struggle.

When every individual (at least those in the forefronts) keeps their political differences, their religious preferences, their caste, race, colour aside, it would just be the most positive impact of this crisis, it would feel like winning a war.

Nobody was prepared for this, we all are still in the process of preparing for it. The blame game just delays and worsens the process. Together there’s hope, individually we are all just broken pieces of crumbling economies and failing health care infrastructures.

But of course, this is all just wishful thinking. I will only keep wondering about such utopian world, where people come together as one, and diligently plan for the wellbeing of each other. I might as well wait until forever for it to turn into reality.

Take care, folks, wherever you are! All good wishes. 🙂

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #7

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These occasional spottings of airplanes and helicopters, are like rays of hope that things will soon come back to normalcy.

Hello, Helicopter!

Living in a megacity, I had grown habitual to the regular noises surrounding me. Of vehicles, of trains- local as well as long distance trains, of airplanes. Now that it isn’t a regular occurrence, I’ve realised how much I’ve taken it for granted.

So much depends on those airplanes. So much depends on those trains. So much depends on those vehicles on the roads. Be it a passenger train, be it a goods trains, or an import-export plane. There are people willing to travel to meet their extended family or even their immediate family living in some other part of the country (or even in some other part of the world), amid the crisis, taking a huge risk.

I feel extremely privileged to have a roof to live under and a loving family with me.

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.