Balaka Basu's Blog, page 11

Z is Zen #A-ZChallenge2020

In the first week of March, I started writing my posts for #A-Z Challenge 2020. My theme was “Love Stories”. I wrote the posts but when I revealed the theme of A-Z Challenge it was different. It was no more ‘love stories’. I decided to write about my feelings during the #coronavirus lockdown. It helped to clear the chaos and clutter of my mind.

My mind was full of anger, anxiety and alienation when I started but after a month, I feel calmer. They say ‘writing is therapeutic’. It indeed is. In last one month, I have learned to be more grateful for whatever, I have. I feel blessed to have a roof above my head and food on my plate. I wrote about my feelings during the lockdown period through my posts. I hope a few of them resonated with you.

Today, when the challenge comes to an end, a part of me is feeling sad. The sadness that we feel after a journey ends. This was a beautiful blogging journey and thanks to all of you for making it memorable. I enjoyed reading the posts of all my fellow bloggers. Some of them were informative, some were entertaining, some were funny, some scary and few made me emotional. I loved reading all of them. I hope to keep bumping into your blogs even after the A-Z is over. Let us all keep in touch. Let us build our own community.

The challenge is over but the #lockdown is not yet over. So request all of you to #stayhome and #staysafe.

‘(Y)ou are a Bad Mom’- Says the Whatsapp Mommies #A-ZChallenge2020

When I feel like a confident and ‘situation-under-control’ Mom, I just need to read messages on one of the Mommy groups on Whatsapp. Immediately, my confidence shatters like a house of cards. There are precisely two places on Earth that can shatter my confidence as a woman. The first one is a beauty parlor and the second one is a Mommy group.

If you don’t believe me, then ask yourself, did anyone in a parlor said anything good about your hair or skin ever? I can bet. Never. They will always find your hair either too dry or too oily and suggest a hair spa. They will find your skin tanned, rough, oily, flaky, blah! Blah! and suggest a facial or bleach or some exotic cleansing ritual. And that is how they make their business survive.

Similarly, a mommy group will always find some fault in your mothering ( I don’t know, unlike a parlor, what vested interest they have). These moms have ideal kids and these mommies (apparently) never need to yell at their kids and yet their kids never refuse to eat a broccoli or finish their homework in time and never back answer. Each time I listen to these moms, I doubt my decision to have a kid. The concoction of these mommies and my mother-in-law is enough to make me feel like the worst mother on Earth.

Now, you must be wondering what is the connection of these mommies to Coronavirus. Let me get to the point. I usually stay away from these groups but due to the lockdown, I am forced to interact in a couple of these groups. Sonny boy is having online school and other classes. Therefore, to know his schedule, homework, assignments I have to interact here and trust me I am at my wits end.

I feel so inferior to these moms. They know every single detail about the child’s schedule. I am sure they maintain excel sheets about their kid’s schedule while I spend my free time watching DanTDM videos with son. Absolutely wasting time! These moms know about every single homework and every single assignment. Whereas I feel, isn’t my son grown enough to keep a track of his own assignments, why do I need to know?

These moms feed their kids ONLY healthy food that would activate their brain neurons while I am that lazy mom who is okay if the kid wants some Maggi. These moms are preparing their kids for Science Olympiad and IIT/IIM while my son says he would quit studies and become a Youtuber and I am kind of okay with it.

On a serious note, I am already exhausted with work from home and household chores. To add to my woes, my mobile phone died and now I cannot work the entire morning because the son uses the laptop to do his online school. The moment I check the Whatsapp messages, these groups are flooded with 200 messages. Scrolling through such a huge trail is difficult and 90% of the messages are just screenshots of homework and chapters and remaining 10% are the moms beating their own trumpet about how organized or perfect they are. Of course, there are also some clueless and clumsy like me who at times post some frantic SOS message.

I mean why do the moms need to share screenshots? when we were kids our moms raised us without mobile, Whatsapp, and screenshots and none of us turned gamblers or drug dealers. That proves our moms did it right even without gadgets. We wrote our homework in the school diary and kids of my son’s age are also capable of doing the same. Maybe a virtual diary. Why do Moms need to take screenshots of homework? Aren’t these making the kids too much dependant on the moms? Isn’t it time we teach them to take their own responsibility?

Then comes the judging part. The moms who are less involved (read less helicopter parents) they are termed irresponsible. There are moms who sit with the kid during their online classes and take notes. I could have never imagined my mom doing that for me. I think most of our moms were like that. Were they bad mothers? did they love us any less? I don’t think so.

I am honestly, tired of this ‘SuperMom” culture. Everybody has become a ‘parenting guru’. And these groups are flooded with all kinds of parenting mantras. I give up. I admit maybe I am a flawed mom, but that is how I am. I just want to be a ‘normal mom’ with all my imperfections and do not want to be a ‘flawless Supermom’. Please excuse me.

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Xenophobia during Coronavirus Pandemic #A-ZChallenge2020

Covid19 has aggravated Xenophobia especially Sinophobia all over the world. For obvious reasons the Chinese are the worst affected. The conspiracy theories that are doing the rounds point fingers towards the Communist regime of China. As a result many common Chinese people are getting targeted. However, in many cases many non-Chinese mongoloid people are becoming the target of racism. For example, recently a Taiwanese was targeted in an Australian supermarket as a Chinese. In Delhi someone spit on a Manipuri girl calling her a Chinese. Interestingly, even within China people from Hubei province are facing discrimination from the people of mainland China. Many also stopped visiting Chinese restaurants.

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A video reportedly recorded in Kibera, Kenya shows an angry crowd threatening a man and woman of East Asian descent about the coronavirus. A man in the crowd shouts at the frightened couple, “You are corona!” A motorcycle rider from the crowd later raised his hand threatening to slap the Asian man. The couple looked angry and therefore started swearing in Chinese towards the crowd before the video ended.

In Israel, more than 1,000 South Korean tourists were instructed to avoid public places and remain in isolation in their hotels. In Japan, the hashtag #ChineseDontComeToJapan had been trending on Twitter.  A Korean working in Jordan since 2014 reported to the police that he was beaten and mocked due to his Asian appearance. A Palestinian mother with her daughter chanted “Corona, corona” to the two Japanese women who were in Ramallah for non-governmental aid mission. Singapore government has ordered an investigation against an Islamic teacher, Abdul Halim bin Abdul Karim, after he had posted on Facebook that the coronavirus pandemic was “a retribution by Allah against the Chinese for their oppressive treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.” In a separate post, Abdul Halim claimed that Chinese people do not wash properly after defecating and were not as hygienic as Muslims, causing the virus to spread. The same thing was also said by an Indian Muslim cleric. A restaurant in Seoul had a sign in red Chinese characters stating: “No Chinese Allowed”.

Asians in Paris have reported an increase in racism and harassment. A Chinese woman in Berlin, who had not visited China in three months, was reportedly turned away by her gynecologist, claiming that the coronavirus may infect pregnant women in the clinic. In Munich, a German woman of Chinese descent was assaulted by a neighbor, who sprayed her with disinfectant, screamed “Corona” at her. A Chinese man was barred from entering a gas station in Cassola in Vicenza, Veneto, and was told “You have coronavirus, you cannot enter!” at which point somebody broke a bottle on his head causing severe injuries. The same day, an elderly Filipino pensioner was attacked and punched in a supermarket.

On a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Seoul on 11 February 2020, flight attendants put up a sign in Korean discouraging passengers from using a restroom on the plane allegedly reserved for the flight crew, apparently out of fear of the coronavirus.  Japanese School of Amsterdam cautioned parents not to bring their children to playgrounds and other places frequented by local children, amidst a spate of violent bullying incidents targeting Japanese children. In Montreal, vandals targeted Vietnamese Buddhist temples by smashing statues and religious artifacts. Tottenham Hotspur footballer Dele Alli posted a video on Snapchat where he wore a face mask and appeared to mock an Asian man seated near him in Dubai about the coronavirus outbreak. He later apologized and deleted the video.

U.S. President Donald Trump frequently referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus” in an attempt to point to its origin, a term considered by some to be anti-Chinese and racist. He later argued this was “not racist at all” after lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren raised objections about the statement. Additionally Trump stated that the coronavirus was not Asian Americans’ fault and they should be protected in a tweet. Trump also brushed off the alleged use of the derogatory term “Kung Flu” by a White House official to refer to COVID-19 when asked by a reporter during a media session. Eventually he pulled back on the “Chinese Virus” name due to Asian communities facing an increased number of racist taunts and incidents as the illness spread across the U.S.

 

Work from Home during Lockdown, The Pros and Cons #A-ZChallenge2020

I have been working from home intermittently since last ten years. I never felt working from home so exhausting the way I am finding it now. I honestly envy those who are getting time to Netflix and Chill. I recently read a post by my fellow blogger Akshata Ramesh who is facing a similar ordeal. You can read her post Work from Home- Yea or Nay #Coronadays

The Pros of WFH:

Travel Time: The biggest pros for people living in cities are that they save a huge lot of time traveling to and from work. In big cities like Mumbai or Delhi people are saving 2-3 hours of travel time every day.

More Free Quality Time: The time that you save on travel can now be spent with family, friends, pets, hobbies, etc. Most people get so exhausted with traveling and traffic that by day end they turn into a zombie and get no quality time for themselves.

Less Formal: Working from home can be done in a casual way. No need to put on your work clothes, no need to worry about getting late to work, no need to pack lunchbox, and no need to sit on a revolving chair. You can work in your pajamas, on your bed while eating daal chawal. In my previous post, I discussed how we are working from home in our nightclothes.

The Cons of WFH:

Having worked from home for a long time, I always see more cons than pros and certainly prefer going to the office. This is the first time the man is also realizing the cons. Earlier he used to always feel that I have it easy because I work from home and his was the ‘hard work’. Now he knows how hard it is to work from home. He learned it the ‘hard’ way.

Distraction: Working from home has its own share of distraction, unless you stay alone and can convert your house to your office in a blink. Especially if you have kids or pets it is extremely difficult. I once wrote a post on the Difficult life of a WAHM(work-at-home-mom) and today that is true for both parents.

Social Isolation: Working from the office you can just walk up to the cubicle of your team and get work done but from home it is difficult to reach them. You also feel a sense of isolation when you work from home.

Slow Internet: Often residential internet is slower than the commercial ones and that becomes a major issue.

You incur cost and your company saves money: WFH actually reduces your CTC in a way. The companies save on their electricity bill, internet bill, office space rent, cleaning staff salary, coffee and refreshments, tissue paper, soap, etc. Long back one of my colleagues had joked that the more tissue paper we use the more our CTC increases. However, if you think about it then it is not a joke but the truth.

Juggling home and office work: When you leave for office, you can suspend all your household chores and concentrate on office work. When you WFH then it is impossible to suspend and you end up constantly juggling both. I am kind of used to cooking and handling client calls simultaneously but the man is finding it really hard. The other day he was on a call while mopping the floor. I was in a way getting a sadistic pleasure looking at him.

This was more or less our ordeal. Let me know how you are coping with your WFH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ugly, Untidy and Unclean during Lockdown #A-ZChallenges2020

My moustache and husband’s hair is growing, if the lockdown continues then we would look like (bad) clones of each other. Quite similar to celebrity wax statues, where you can identify which statue is whom but yet they are so different.

Both of us like many other people all over the world have not visited the salon in the longest time. We are on our way to reverse our evaluation and become Neanderthals once again.

Pre-Lockdown, on a regular day, I used to wake up and then change my nightclothes and slip into track pants and go for my morning walk. After coming back, I used to take a bath and change into my work clothes and start working by 10am. However, now till 2pm, I roam around in my nighty (which is torn in a couple of places). Well, I am the kind of woman who always hated to watch women roaming around in their nightclothes and always believed that nightclothes should be only worn during sleep time. This lockdown changed my thoughts. Now, I give preference to comfort over anything. The man also roams around in his night shorts all through the night and day. If we click a couple photo now and post it on some crowdfunding platform for the homeless, we will surely amass a fortune.

When we have to attend some official calls we put on a formal shirt above whatever we are wearing and sit in front of the camera. The upper and the lower part of the body literally start struggling with multiple personality disorder. If the lockdown persists any longer than we would forget wearing trousers and skirts.

Our house is equally messy. My regular readers are aware that I suffer from ataxophobiaand used to be poor woman’s Marie Kondo, you could read my previous posts on home organisation However, the lockdown changed my entire personality. Gone are the days of a clean house, now half of the things are on the floor and I am least bothered. Nobody is going to visit us so what is the urgency to clean?

I think, I am not alone in this journey to ‘eternal ugliness’. Most of the pretty women have stopped posting selfies on their timeline. That makes me feel comfortable. Honestly, I am not the makeup type, but then again I am also not the one who would let her body hair grow like Rapunzel. After the lockdown is over, I doubt if my old photos would even resemble me. What is your story of cleaning and grooming during lockdown? I am eager to know.

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Technology to the Rescue during Lockdown #A-ZChallenge2020

The global lockdown would have been more severe and unbearable had there been no technology. Can you imagine this lockdown during the 60s, 70s, 80s or even 90s and how we would have felt without the internet. How more difficult it would have been. Thanks to technology it is helping us a lot to cope.

Work from Home: This would have been impossible. So many companies are still able to function and many able to retain their jobs only because there is technology. Many companies had started the practice of WFH for long. Especially in the IT sector it has been extremely common. Our office started practicing this since 2006 and many of us could work from remote locations. This lockdown forced even conservative companies to explore the possibility of WFH.

Online Classes: Most of the educational institutes have started online classes. Earlier there were online courses. E-learning came into India long back. I started my career as an instructional designer and my main work was to design online courses. However, there were very few takers for K12 courses. Gradually some private coaching institutes took up the idea of online classes. Later on apps were launched. Yet, regular schools were depending mostly on classroom education and kept online courses only as an additional feature. With this Lockdown online classes have become a common feature and most kids are getting their syllabus completed irrespective of the lockdown.

Online Shops: India had seen a surge in e-commerce for quite some time but Indians were never dependant on online shopping. However, now online shopping has become the only way to get things and most services are seeing a surge in their business.

Streaming Services: The lockdown is causing havoc for the feature film industry but it is making the streaming services run to their banks. The viewers are so spoilt for choices that those who want can spend the whole lockdown period just by doing Netflix and Chill.

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Messaging and Video Calling: In my childhood, I saw my grandparents anxiously waiting for a letter from my Uncles/Aunts who lived abroad during any calamity in their respective country. However, thanks to messaging and video calling we are connected all the time. After the lockdown, apart from work-related, I have done video-calling with my school friends, college friends, ex-colleagues, cousins, chanting groups, son’s school friends and even neighbours. We also attended a couple of Zoom birthday parties.

Social Media: Irrespective of its many vices, social media is a great boon to stay connected during this period. We know who is doing what and if they are fine. We are celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and food over social media.

Indeed technology has been the biggest blessing. Did I miss out any point? If you have anything more to add please feel free. I would appreciate that.

Social Distancing and Social Media Challenges #A-ZChallenge2020

Social media has become extremely ‘challenging’ ever since people started ‘social distancing’. Every other day some new challenges are coming up and I am getting tagged.  The first tag that was making the rounds to apparently create ‘positivity’ was the #stronggorgeouswomen. I don’t know, if it created any positivity for others, for me it just cluttered my timeline with lots of tags. And, I was definitely not the one to play along.

I made a general trend analysis of social media posts.

Panic: In the initial days of the lockdown most of the posts were mostly information (and misinformation) regarding Covid19. They were awareness posts on how to wash hands, how to stay safe, statistics, etc. Unfortunately most of the posts ended up creating more panic than awareness.

Creativity Photos: Once the panic settled, people started getting bored and then they posting photos of their creativity. Proud parents started posting photos of the creativity of their kids. Some of the posts were indeed good but many of them were cringe-worthy. 

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Food Photos: Next came the food photos. Every single person on my timeline has turned into a Masterchef and each day they are posting photos of some exotic food from their kitchen. This pandemic is definitely causing many to binge into ’emotional eating’ and the timeline is proof to that. Those who couldn’t even boil an egg are now making French food.

Photo Challenges: Next came the photo challenges. There were various types of photo challenges and I was getting tagged every now and then. There was the motherhood photo challenge (motherhood is already quite challenging, I don’t want to add another challenge to it. Thank You), couple photo challenge (with his overgrown hair and my unthreaded beard and moustache, we are looking more like brother-sister rather than a couple), proud pet parent photo challenge (I don’t have a pet), your photo of when you were 20 years old (I don’t have time to search for such an old photo after all the work) and the best was the Saree challenge (Thankfully wearing saree has never been challenging for me. I love to wear a saree and wear it for almost every occassion).

Ask your kids these questions and share your answers challenge: I particularly disliked this challenge. I felt this challenge was deviced to get information about the kids. After watching the movie The Great Hack I am extremely skeptical about sharing information on Facebook.

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Romance During Lockdown #A-ZChallenge2020

After fourteen years of marriage, mushy romance got restricted to the honeymoon photos. These days we have replaced ‘I love you’ with ‘I told you’. For example, just a few days before the lockdown started the man had wanted to buy 20 kilos of rice which I summarily rejected. Now, when all grocery shops are shut in the neighborhood and the stock of rice is depleting in my pantry, he is repeating ‘I told you that we should buy more rice’ at the slightest opportunity. Most of our conversations are either beginning or ending with this line. I think I heard him blabbering this even in his sleep.

Well, hum bhi kisise kam nahi. I had asked him to take son to the barber the week before shutdown and he conveniently ignored. Now when my son (and son’s father) is almost turning into Rapunzel, I also have reason enough to repeat the ‘I told you’.

This lockdown is becoming the ‘agnipariksha’ for most marriages. The marriages that survive this lockdown should get some badge of honor from the government. Rest of the marriages will surely make the divorce lawyers sprint to their banks. In China and the USA the demand for divorce lawyers has actually increased. The newly married ones would be worst affected. We came to know the vices of our partners gradually over the years. So we digested the hard pill slowly but for the newly married ones they are getting to see the vices of a lifetime in 21 days. I doubt how many would actually be able to survive the shock.

However, I feel sorry for the young lovers. Most of them are not being able to meet each other. So they are using video calling to keep in touch. Those who were already in a long-distance romance are nonchalant as this lockdown has little or no impact on their relationship. Video calling unka roz ka haal hai.

Reports claim that dating apps are booming and many are finding solace in online dating. Dating apps like Hinge, Bumble and Tinder are seeing an increase in new users across the board, as more and more people hop aboard to escape the confines of their homes. Existing users, too, seem to be spending more time and effort in looking for a connection. Many users have also come up with lockdown specific pick-up lines like ‘Hey there, are you the vaccine? Because the whole world is chasing you.’ Funnily enough, Tinder’s top bios have also changed from the usual “wanderlust”- and “sapiosexual”-studded statements, to phrases like “stay home”, “be safe”, “social distancing”, “how are you”, and “wash your hands”.

In sharp contrast are the few users who don’t see the point of going online while isolating, no matter what part of the world they are in, since there aren’t high chances of it leading to a real date. And then there are apps like Quarantine Chat, which are enabling strangers all over the world to chat.

Online extramarital affairs are also on the rise. Many people are seeking online affairs to break the monotony of being in close proximity with the spouse all the time. But I wonder what about the ones who are involved in real-life adultery. How they are surviving without meeting the paramour.  Imagine their pathos, they are away from their paramours and stuck with the spouses from whom they wanted to break free. Nothing can be worse than this.

Do you have any quarantine romantic story? For me the only romantic thing is that the other day the man did jhaadu pocha. When I saw him bending over the floor and mopping, my heart swelled with love and started singing “tujhe dekha to Jana sanam..pyaar hota hai BJP (bartan-jhaaru-pocha) sanam, ab yahan see kahan jaye hum? iss lockdown mein phas gaye hai hummmmm..”

Psst: I just hope my mother-in-law doesn’t read this post or else she will get a heart attack knowing how her ladla son is doing household chores.

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Quarantine Quandary #A-ZChallenge2020

Quarantine used to be a lesser-known word for many of us before the outbreak of Covid19. It was relevant only for patients of highly contagious disease. The general rule was that if any person contracted a contagious disease he or she would be quarantined from the others. They would live separately without infecting others. However, with Covid19 all of us are forced to quarantine ourselves. The infected and uninfected alike and thus new terms like self-quarantine or self-isolation are entering the English dictionary.

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Image by Nandukumar@Pixabay.com

Post covid19 outbreak anybody who traveled abroad were made to stay in quarantine for 14 days. Then reports started coming about people who were escaping from quarantine facilities. Those who were asked to self-quarantine at home also started taking it lightly and started roaming around freely. Then airports started stamping the hands of travelers coming to India from abroad with a quarantine stamp. Irrespective of the stamp many started evading the quarantine. Once few people with the quarantine stamp were caught traveling on train by fellow passengers and they were badly heckled. One woman escaped the quarantine facility in Bangalore and went all the way to Agra. When Police went to her Agra house they were heckled by the woman’s father. The District Magistrate had to personally go and control the situation.

Many reports came that the quarantine facilities were dirty, unhygienic and unliveable. Even now the facilities where migrants labours have been kept in UP and Bihar are quite abysmal. Nevertheless many well educated foreign returned people also showed carelessness when it came to self-quarantine. However, there were also many who diligently followed. I have a few friends who were very careful and in my neighbourhood a girl returned from the UK. Her entire family went into quarantine. They didn’t step out at all. Groceries and other emergency items were dropped at their doorstep.

This whole quarantine situation reminded me of a few situations from the past. When I was around seven years old, I got chickenpox. That time my mom self- quarantined herself with me in an abandoned kitchen of my paternal grandmother’s (thakuma) house. My grandmother and Aunts used to leave food for us on banana leaves at the doorstep. I was made to sleep on a bed of neem leaves. Within a couple of days my youngest uncle also contracted the disease. He joined us and he was also made to sleep on a bed of neem leaves. Within a week apart from my grandmother and Ma everyone in the family got chickenpox. There was no more space in the abandoned kitchen. Maids stopped coming and my poor Ma and Thakuma had to take care of so many patients alone. Later in life, when my son got chickenpox, I did the same as my Ma. I quarantined myself with him. Thankfully, he had a mild one and got better faster without infecting anyone else.

Conjunctivitis was another infectious disease that used to bother us every summer. It is also known as ‘Joy Bangla’ in Bengal. I used to get it almost every alternate year and that time I used to stay quarantined in my room.

However, this is the first time that I am in quarantine without any infection. And I am not alone, almost three fourth of all the countries have joined me. Sigh!!!

 

Pollution Reduction During Lockdown. Myth or Reality? #A-ZChallenge2020

After the lockdown began in Europe, there were tweets claiming that nature was reclaiming its space. Dolphins were returning to the Italian coasts while swans were seen floating in the Venetian canals. However, soon it was said that those tweets were spreading fake news. Nevertheless, many more birds are indeed roaming the canals of Europe.

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Undoubtedly, the air quality of cities across the world is improving due to the lockdown that is being imposed by the government of many countries. There is a stunning decrease in atmospheric nitrogen dioxide over urban areas. Paris levels are down nearly 55%, with Rome, Milan, and Madrid all approaching 50% reductions compared to normal.

In Delhi, air quality index (AQI) levels are usually a severe 200 on a good day (anything above 25 is deemed unsafe by The World Health Organization). During peak pollution periods last year they soared well into a life-threatening 900 and sometimes off the measurable scale. But as Delhi’s 11million registered cars were taken off the roads and factories and construction were ground to a halt, AQI levels have regularly fallen below 20. While India’s powerful car lobby has long disputed that cars are a major cause of Delhi’s pollution, Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment, said the lockdown and resulting rapid drop in pollution showed once and for all just what a polluting role vehicles had in the city.

It is not just Delhi experiencing the clearest skies in years. As pollution dropped to its lowest level in three decades this week residents of Jalandhar in Punjab woke up to an incredible sight in the distance: the Dhauladhar mountain range in Himachal Pradesh. The peaks, which are over 120 miles away, had not been sighted on the Punjab horizon for almost 30 years.

While a drop in transportation during the coronavirus lockdowns has led to lower pollution levels across the world, the slowdown in traffic has also lowered another big polluter: Noise.

Birds — by far the most visible animals found in cities, and also the most vocal — stand to be among the biggest beneficiaries of quieter streets and parks. The signals birds send each other through song is a means of survival. Without the ability to sing, hear and be heard, birds would have a difficult time finding a mate or defending their territory from predators. Apart from birds many other animals like snails, whales and other sea animals are also benefitting.

Amchi Mumbai is also getting relief from air and noise pollution. These days I get to hear the chirping of birds instead of honking of cars from my window. I also get to see more birds and they look happier and chattier. We Mumbaikars were used to a grey sky but these days we get to see a clear blue sky. At night the stars are also clearly visible. The other day, I could actually show a constellation of stars to my son. The following pictures were clicked by yours truly from the window. Honestly, I have never seen such a  clear blue sky in Mumbai in the last decade.

Cleaner air for a few months may be a tiny silver lining to COVID-19’s dark clouds, but will do little in the long run to solve the problem of outdoor air pollution that kills more than four million people every year. For that we need to kick our habit of burning coal, oil and gas. For the time being let’s just enjoy the clean air.