Lakshmi Iyer's Blog, page 27
June 21, 2020
COVID-19 Diaries: Doom
My right eye twitches. I press my finger on the jumping nerve to still it. Tears poke behind my eyelids. My eyes burn. I am feeling feverish from a lack of sleep and running on adrenaline for two weeks now. My phone lights up with a notification. An extended family member reaches out hearing of […]
June 20, 2020
COVID-19 Diaries: Direct Hit
Over the weeks, I have mused countless times about how much the pandemic occupies my thoughts. I have imagined in vivid detail what the virus does and can do to our bodies. I have feared that someone dear to me might be affected. Amma spiked a fever ten days ago. A mild fever she said. […]
June 14, 2020
COVID-19 Diaries: Longing
It is past bedtime but the five of us are crowded around my laptop peering into the screen. My siblings and their families are in small rectangles on the display. It is chaotic. It is loud. We sing off key as my niece cuts her birthday cake. The whole meeting is less than thirty minutes. […]
June 13, 2020
Nalak By Abanindranath Tagore – Translated by Urbi Bhaduri
Towards the end of 2019, I received an email from Urbi asking if I would like to read a book she had translated. She sent me a blurb and I was definitely interested. I forgot all about it until the book turned up in my mailbox in February of this year. It is a slim […]
June 8, 2020
COVID-19 Diaries: Reminiscences
Jackfruit. The item remained on our shared grocery list for weeks. Each grocery trip, my finger would hover over it, tempted to strike it off knowing how rare it is to find it locally. Yet, it would stay, a reminder of how random cravings for things from my past can take hold and not let […]
COVID-19 Diaries: Anniversary
Nineteen years is a long time. It is even when you factor in the first few years when you are getting to know the person, the next few years when you are struggling to build a family, the years after that are consumed by nurturing this hard-built family. We have both grown. We have both […]
June 6, 2020
COVID-19 Diaries: Politics, Race, Children
There is a pain between my shoulder blades that is nagging. It has been a week. I lower myself to the ground so my upper back can find something firm to rest upon. My kaapi is by the side. I snack on cheese curls as I scroll through my feed. Hasan Minhaj’s video has been […]
May 30, 2020
The Race Conversation
“What is the meaning of race?” My elbows are flat against the kitchen island, my face level with my girls. “Run?” “Bring children up?” The twins come up with every possible meaning but the one I was curious to know what they knew. We drank our kaapi, set Laddu up so she could Facetime her […]
May 29, 2020
Milestone: Fifth Grade Graduation
For the last day of the school year, today did not seem any different from the three months preceding this. When the school decided to close on March 13th, there were no goodbyes, no last day pictures, no walkouts to cheering children, no teary-eyed parents waiting in the wings to ferry their children to douse […]
May 28, 2020
Adoption: Do Not Adopt Unless You WANT To
I woke up to a message on FB with a link to this Buzzfeed article on Myka Stauffer. Prior to reading the article, I had no idea who she was. It is a reflection on how little I am connected to the world of influencers and their ilk. I read the article a few times. […]
