Everyday Moments- (#SOL-2020

2-2-2021

February  has started and I wonder where has January gone. Covid is still a part of our lives and we are reading different reports from different parts of the world. In Germany, lockdown is still going on. My daughter tells me there are a lot of rules to follow. People wearing cloth masks are not allowed inside supermarkets. Our grandson, Advaith is busy with school work but his sister Kavya misses kindergarten. Here, high school students have started going back to school. But only 10^th and 12^th std children will be writing exams but there will be no summer vacations. I don’t think we would have ever imagined such a situation. Otherwise, things are moving back to what life had been earlier. Cinema halls are to open to full capacity. It has been a long time since we have gone to see a movie, they have stopped interesting me for a long time now. We are not reading much about the vaccination or about the number of cases in the world. Many of our acquaintances are not having any side effects after taking the vaccination.

I love watching flowers  falling from the tree in front of our house, the yellow flowers make a carpet on the ground. Last week I learnt that action is called abscission. This was a new word for me. Another word that I learnt is Dviti, it is a Sanskrit word and means the brightness of the moon. I like the sound of both words. Writing about words , I completed Indica by Pranay Lal a few days ago. It is a fascinating book about the geological history of India. I had started it in November 😊.

We are going for our evening walks regularly but not to the lake, there is always a crowd there. We did not mind it once, but now it bothers us. There is a line of Ashoka trees in the park opposite the temple, the new green leaves at the top look beautiful. I think of ‘new life’ when I see them. The mango trees in the grounds of the bank management institute are flowering and there are mangoes in many of them. Yesterday, we saw sign boards forbidding people from plucking them. People who come there for a walk have never plucked them 😊.

The mango trees in our garden have not flowered. One of the reasons is that they are under the shade of the coconut trees. And here very rarely do people cut down coconut trees. Usually, my husband waters the plants. Sometimes I do. I know it is always better to put water to the roots but I like to spray water on the leaves. I imagine they look happy 😊. Mud is still being removed from the plot behind our house and there is so much of dust that the leaves are looking more brown than green. The star apple tree in our garden is giving us a lot of fruits, we are eating them and sharing with our neighbours. I made lime squash and salted the peels. They make good pickles, but after a month or so.

So many things are happening which have always happened and last year seems like a dream but of course it is not. I felt the despair in my cousin’s voice. There have been changes and we have to learn to live with them. That is life.

An easy route to a spicy harvest | Deccan Herald https://www.deccanherald.com/…/an-easy-route-to-a-spicy-harvest-944395.html

In Van Gogh’s footsteps | Deccan Herald https://www.deccanherald.com/…/in-van-gogh-s-footsteps-944514.html

Pranay Lal on his book, Indica, natural history, the nature of …https://www.thehindu.com/lit-for-life/pranay-lal-talks-of-the…