Everyday Moments (#SOL- 2020)

8-07-2020

Till today my weekly Slices of Life were the edited versions of my letters to my Doddamma. Doddamma literally means ‘elder mother’. She is my father’s elder brother’s wife and my favourite relative from childhood. She is 89, physically she is very weak. She cannot hear properly so I have been writing letters to her every week from October 2017. I was in Germany, in my daughter’s home from Novermber 2017 to January 2018. I used to write about my days in Germany and send mails to my cousin’s wife, Sujata, and she would read it to Doddamma. After returning home I continued sending mails Sujata. Then once she told me that Doddamma would enjoy if I posted my letters to her. She enjoyed the feel of paper in her hands and read the letters again and again. So, I started writing to her in paper and posted them every week. We both enjoyed ourselves. I would talk to her once in a while and she would tell me that I should continue writing to her even if she could not reply. But since April I have been sending mails to Sujata as we could not go to the post office  due to lock down.

Last week Sujata told me Doddamma is very weak and was not able to connect to my mail. Today I talked to my cousin. He said she is very weak. He gave the receiver her to her , she got my name right and the first two sentences were about us , then her mind wandered and she talked about many things but I could not understand all that she said. My cousin told me that she is very confused most of the time and she is very weak. Sadly, there is a fracture in her shoulder and she is in a lot of pain. But she sits in her chair and reads the newspaper. But I am not very sure whether she can relate to all that is happening in the world today. She is very lucky because she is surrounded with love and well looked after. I would have loved to go and be with her for some days but that is not possible. They live in Mumbai. My cousin said this is life and we have to face what comes our way. In fact that is what Doddamma has always believed in, accepting what comes our way. We can change some things and some we cannot. That is life.

 We have been getting good rains. One evening we went for a walk around our lake and it was happy to see the water level rising everyday. This is a rain water harvested lake. It helps to retain groundwater level.

The outside world, and our world too, is being controlled by corona virus. Yesterday we read in the papers that the virus is airborne too and wearing the mask is the best option. I read this very interesting article by a well known writer, Shashi Deshpande.

‘Write about what is happening to the world? I can’t’: Shashi …

https://scroll.in/article/965874/write-about-what-is-happening-to-the…

I enjoy making chutney powders of different flavours. One of my cousin enjoys it too. She is my father’s elder sister’s daughter. She is 75 and very interested in life. Last year she had given me a special chutney powder. The recipe had been given to her from her mother who got it from her mother. Two weeks ago I told her I had all the ingredients except white sesame. I told her Aravind had loved it. She asked for our postal address , prepared the chutney powder and sent it by post. We are enjoying it 😊.  I completed the cover for our TV, it looks nice. But I very rarely watch TV. We would have been watching Wimbledon if things were different !!

Every Sunday is going to be a curfew for the next two months, as of now. A hotelier in Mangalore served food to the destitute, He said he will give food every Sunday lockdown. We are now in the third position ☹. On the 5^th evening we had our book club meeting but only Todd and I were present. We talked about books and about life in general. It was good.

June’s Reading

The champaka flowers in our neighbour’s tree look beautiful and their fragrance fill our life with fragrance.  The green treetops look beautiful against the blue sky.