My weekly Slice of Life are my letters to my Doddamma. She is my father’s elder brother’s wife. Doddamma literally means ‘elder mother’. She is 89 years old. She cannot hear properly if I telephone to talk to her. So, I have been writing letters to her since October 2017. I enjoy writing letters and she is happy to read them. They are only about the everyday moments in my life. Since last week I am sending my letters by e mail to my cousin’s wife. She is reading them to my Doddamma.
2-06-2020
Problems are increasing everywhere. What has happened in America brings home to us about the evils of inequality all over the world. Our country has become the 7thhighest infected country in the world. In our place, cases are increasing and lockdown is being lifted. We read in the papers that the borders of our capital are being sealed. Life will be terrible for those countless people who have lost their jobs. Locusts have destroyed vegetation all along their path of flight. Not only locusts, we human beings too are destroying so much in our planet. It was sad to read that those in charge of looking after the environment have been surreptitiously approving long pending ‘developmental’ projects inside protected areas of our country. Will people ever learn?

We have been getting rains from the 31st. But these rains are due to depression in the Arabian sea and a cyclone is to hit the coasts of Maharashtra and Gujarat to our northwest. Our monsoon season will start in a day or two as the south west monsoon has hit Kerala, to the south of us. Nature has her own rules.
It feels there is no end to problems. In the midst of this we have to lead our everyday life.
I have been stitching a cover for our TV on cross stitch material. While stitching I listen to Sherlock Holmes on Audibles. These stories were written in a different time but they have not aged. They are as fascinating as ever. It is now 3.30 in the evening and it is raining heavily. The birds have taken shelter somewhere, otherwise at this time I hear them chattering loudly and exchanging news of the day 😊. Now I am hearing the sound of rain. That too is soothing in its way. We need these rains.
Last month I had stitched salwar kameez for myself. When we stitch our clothes, there is always enough material left to stitch something else. In the past few months I had been seeing ladies wearing kameez stitched by using different materials. I did this and now I have a kameez which I can wear with three different salwars 😊. It is satisfying to create something different.
On the 29th the gas in our cylinder finished. We have two cylinders. We fixed the regulator to the new one and I was horrified to see that gas was leaking. I called our gas agency and they said they would send a replacement soon. Our neighbour was kind enough to give a cylinder. Afternoon when we got our cylinder we asked the delivery man to give the new cylinder there. Meanwhile the defective cylinder was replaced. How I wish problems could be fixed so easily. But, they are not.
Life is going on, the ordinary and the extraordinary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalwar_kameez
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/cyclone-nisarga-path-tracker-landfall-rain…

Thank you for sharing. SAN
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is powerful and beautiful. You’ve inspired me to create a found poem:
Life
no end to problems:
inequality
countless people lost,
but
we lead our everyday
Life
the sound of rain
soothing
satisfied to create
something
we finish; we fix, replace.
How I wish
problems fixed
so easily
Life
ordinary
extraordinary.
Thank you so much for this gift of writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful response to a well written post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A found poem is new to me. I read about it. Thank you 😊
LikeLike
Winston Churchill said (paraphrased), “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” It seems that we are not learning since history keeps repeating itself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The glimpse into your life so far away also reveals what connects us–the virus and the turmoil. Thank you for sharing snatches of your internal and external day.
LikeLike
I think you are hinting at coal mining activities in Dihing-Patkai Reserve Forest. The only rain forest left in India is being systematically decimated by unholy alliance between those in power and the coal mafia.
LikeLike
I read about this in the papers and for a moment felt human beings deserve the problems they are facing but of course so many innocent people suffer.
LikeLike
There is always such a contrast between the deep troubles of the world and our quiet domestic lives. You capture that dichotomy very well here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never thought I would live to experience the pandemic and lockdowns and so much hardships!
LikeLike
There must have been so many problems. How are you ?
LikeLike
The government has relaxed the Quarantine measures a bit. At least there’s is public transport. However, when the lockdown started, we only had 300 covid cases. Now we have 20,000.+
LikeLike
Same in my country, cases are rising everywhere. I live in Karnataka, in my district there were only 3 or 4 cases now more than 750 cases. We have to take care.
LikeLiked by 1 person