Anoop Judge's Blog, page 2

One Year Later: How Two working Moms Are Doing

Priya Sethi walked outside the kitchen’s back door so that the strong salty sea smell blew onto the balcony. The air had a sharp tang that battled for supremacy over the scents of tandoori salmon and smoke (yesterday’s dinner) that blew out from the kitchen.

She couldn’t see the ocean—a row of bungalows identical to her own, some with redwood planter boxes blooming with trumpet-shaped pink petunias blocked her view. She could hear the water though . . . the steady dull thunder of the surf reminding her that it was close, at the edge of Manhattan Beach in Southern California where they’d relocated to.

She walked back into the house, noting the dirty dishes stacked on the side of the sink that would have to be put away before her work trip to Seattle tomorrow. She wasn’t looking forward to being in the wet, damp city that they’d lived in for six years, but thank goodness it was only going to be for a couple of days.

How quickly they’d adjusted to life in sunny California. She cast her mind back to the family’s vacation last summer to La La land and how they’d always dreamed of living by the beach. But, they had always viewed that move as a retirement plan.

Priya Sethi was a daughter of The Great Plains, born and raised by immigrant parents near the confluence of two great rivers in Illinois. But the Mississippi and Ohio, powerful as they were, had nothing on the Pacific Ocean. The ocean was magical to her, its depths and mysteries were boundless, its call irresistible. Watching her two sons frolicking on the beach, laughing and gamboling upon the waves, she’d turned to her husband and said, “Why not do it now? Since we can work remotely.”

Microsoft, where Priya and her husband both worked, was open to people working remotely permanently. That’s when it became a reality. Over the winter break, the family moved. The boys started their new school in January, remotely at first, and now attended in person. Besides, they were careful to buy a place next to LAX. It was a quick jump on the plane anytime they needed to go back for meetings.

Cody, the Labrador, came bounding into the kitchen, plumed tail wagging, looking for his breakfast. Priya couldn’t help smiling as she let out the dog, enjoying the sunshine on her face as she walked beside him. As part of the move, the boys had negotiated a pandemic puppy.

“I never thought we could leave Seattle,” she would tell her co-worker Linda the next day while attending a meeting at the company’s headquarters.

“I never thought I could work from home. This year has really changed our world.”

* * * * *

Gigi put her sweats on over her black leotard and sports bra and laced up her sneakers. Grabbing her iPod, she pushed through the door leading from the main house to the garage.

As she pounded on the treadmill, she reflected on how the garage that now housed the Peloton and a squat rack had got a gym makeover last summer after normal routine had been disrupted.

Last March, Gigi, who markets commercial gym equipment, began working from home. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks. A few months at most.

Then, her hours were cut. She went on partial employment as gyms across the U.S. shut down, and demand for new machines dried up.

Meanwhile, Gigi, who lives with her fiancee, was also caring for their two-year-old and helping to support her fiancee’s two middle school-aged children learning at home.

Emotionally it was stressful. The lines between the workplace and the house got blurred. “We are all in this house together,” she remembered complaining to her mom. “It has strained our relationship. And financially, this year has put me behind. I’m not paying anything over the minimum on the car payment.”

“Why don’t you start working out in the garage?” suggested her mom, who was hunkering alone on the seventh floor of her hot and humid apartment in Miami and had taken to playing bingo with her Woodbridge Club friends over a weekly Zoom meeting. “We have college friends joining us from as far away as Philadelphia and Paris, too,” she’d cackled happily.

That had been Gigi’s life-saver. They pulled out the junk from the garage, painted the walls, put in a mat floor, and arranged the equipment.

Gigi massaged her aching muscles as to talked to her mother, who was 2800 miles away. “Now, every time I feel the need to pray or somebody asks something of me, I think of the endorphins pumping through my system. I take a long exhale, and breathe out calm and tranquility.”

How Young People Are Preparing to Party in 2021

After Noori Merchant, 23, got her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, she reached out to her friends to make travel plans for this summer.

“I’m going crazy. Like, I’m going absolutely nuts,” she says. “I don’t want to get to the point in my life where I’m tied down from family, from work, from whatever, and I didn’t make the most of my youth. So I was the one who was like ‘we need to hang out, we need to hang out.”

Her friends told her they needed to get their shots before they could hang out again. So she’s waiting on that. In the meantime, she’s preparing by practicing her dance moves in a skin-flaunting sequinned top with a silver tulle skirt she hasn’t worn in forever in her Washington D.C. home.

“I used to be a much more spontaneous person,“ she says, “but like my friends, the pandemic has made me more cautious. I would have gotten a belly ring by now, but now I’m just scared. But life is too short to not get drunk with your friends, and life is too short to not try to find love. I’m excited to finally meet up with my Tinder and Hinge matches.”

* * * * * *

Aman Khatri, 21, however, was not much of a party person before the pandemic. “I feel like I’m missing something, but I don’t know exactly what I’m missing. I was raised in a conservative Indian family from Atlanta while growing up, and everyone told me I’d be able to party till I puked when I joined college.”

He is in his final year at the University of Berkeley, where he stayed close to campus and attended hybrid classes. After receiving both doses of the vaccine through the University, he has decided that he wants to try to be more social now that he‘s of drinking age. He celebrated his 21st birthday back in November of last year by himself. It was disappointing.

“I sat alone in my dorm and at one in the morning went and bought a six-pack. The cashier didn’t even card me because it was so late, and I looked sad,” he says.

Both Noori and Aman are eager for what comes after a year when the world became very small and quiet.

“I heard Bill Gates on NPR predict that the world will completely return to normal by the end of 2022, and I’m excited to live my life,” he finishes in a rush of words.

* * * * * *

The weather is heating up, the sun is out past 7 p.m., Insta feeds are flooded with “Fauci Ouchie” selfies, and the promise of a post-pandemic summer has Americans frenzied with anticipation like a child on Christmas morning.

“It’s a little bit like a second Roaring 20s,” explains Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University. He says after the Covid-19 pandemic, we might see people seeking out more social interactions at nightclubs, bars, music festivals, and sports games, as well as people burning through the money they saved up during the pandemic.

“If you look at what happened when the plagues finally ended, you know, for centuries, people were relieved.”

* * * * * *

Other experts caution that we should take note of the lessons learned in the last Roaring 20s of economic inequality and mental health dislocation. Sarah Lipson, professor of mental health policy at Boston University, says that there have been many difficult trade-offs many people had to make during the pandemic.

“For older populations, when you think about chronic health conditions like diabetes or heart disease, those are large burdens of disease in older populations. In younger populations, it is mental health that is the largest burden of disease for young people in the United States and worldwide, “ Lipson said in an interview on NPR.

* * * * * *

As excited as he is to party like in the 1920s novel The Great Gatsby, Aman Khatri says it’s not a period of time to which he’d like to return.

“Some people really really suffered during that time. I mean, even Gatsby himself, in the book, he’s not a happy person. So while there’s joy to connect with people again, there’s also a lot of grief and anxiety. And joy and anxiety, I think, are going to kind of co-exist from now on,” he says, scratching his chin.

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I Want the Pandemic to End /I Don't Want the Pandemic to End: Two Perspectives

When Anika Chandok’s Bakersfield middle school shut down last spring and her classes went online, it felt like the beginning of an adventure. “I was in my pajamas, sitting in my comfy chair, “ the thirteen-year-old recalls. “I was texting my friends during class.”

“Then I received my academic progress report. I was an A and B student before the pandemic and now I was failing three classes.” Anika gathers her wits and shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

“The academic slide left my mother in tears. My mom insisted I create to-do lists and moved my workspace into the guest bedroom to pull up my grades.” Pausing to take a sip from her water bottle Anika looks at her therapist Laura Mitchell Moore who gives her an encouraging nod.

“Over the summer my basketball and debate camps were canceled. My family postponed a planned trip to Vancouver to visit my extended family.” She presses her thumb and forefinger into her eyes, then continues. “I formed a pandemic pod with four or five close friends but the girls bickered. Subcliques formed and I and my best friend found ourselves excluded. The pod fell apart.”

Anika swallows, removing her hairband and retying her hair into a ponytail at her nape. She notices distractedly that her fingers are shaking, as she remembers how the return of in-person schooling last fall brought some relief but with some of her classmates still at home, teachers had to shift their attention between in-person kids and those online, leaving students feeling disorganized and behind.

The biggest blow came in October when Anika’s 78-year-old grandfather died of Coivd-19. Her mother flew to Canada for six weeks to help her grandmother. Her father, grief-stricken and withdrawn, had little energy to cook or clean. Diwali came and went without the usual celebratory feasts, fireworks and prayers.

“It was super, super hard. I didn’t know how to feel. All of the people I look up to, they are all, like breaking down,” says Anika as she stops to take out a piece of gum from her handbag. She unfurls the wrapper and pops it in her mouth. She read somewhere that chewing gum will help keep you from crying.

Anika thinks back on how she grew anxious about going to school—afraid she would catch the virus and spread it to her parents. Some classmates didn’t believe Covid was real and some wore their masks down below their chins or dangled them from their ears. Students talked and laughed in clumps, without social distancing. Anika’s stomach churns with grief as she recalls her grandfather’s death and the depression circling like a hawk in search of a field mouse. “They don’t understand how quick it all can change everyone’s lives,” she finishes in a rush.

To stave off boredom, Anika turned to social media for solace. She gave herself makeovers and posted the results on Tik-Tok. She cut her bangs then added a pink streak to her hair. She added four new ear piercings with a safety pin, some of which have still not healed. She shaved part of her head.

Her grades have started falling again. “Every day is the exact same,” she says to Ms. Laura now. “You kind of feel like, what’s the point?”

“Time’s up Anika but I want you to say the words, ‘It will end. I will get through this.’”

“Okay,” says Anika and stands, adjusting the straps of her mask. She gathers her bag and her water bottle and puts a hand on the door handle.

Behind her, she hears Ms. Laura stand.

“Anika?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Anika, I want you to say these words and we’ll be done for the day.”

Anika turns and the warm, animated look on Ms. Laura’s face melts her defenses. Her therapist is just about her only friend. It is a thought so utterly sad she has to fight off a bout of sudden, manic laughter.

When Anika speaks, the words come out so quietly they are almost gone before they arrive. “The pandemic will end. I will get through this.”

She leaves the office, waiting until she is in the elevator to fold over and cry.

*********************************************

Patrick switches off the T.V. just as KQED 7 is reporting on the number of Americans vaccinated as of this week. The commentator’s enthusiastic voice fades as he announces that seventy percent of the country is expected to be vaccinated by summer. He turns to Vandana who’s engrossed in a romance novel from her favorite writer.

“Are you ready to turn in, Vandy?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’ll finish it tomorrow.” Vandy sets the Kindle down on her nightstand and turns her body to face Patrick, feeling her breathing slow down as she smells his soap and Old spice.

“You know it feels wrong to say this in light of all the loss, pain, and misery people have endured over the past year, but I feel scared about the pandemic ending.”

Vandy casts her mind back to her last professional outing which was exactly a year ago: The Silicon Valley Tech Lawyers Summit where she and her fellow counselors nervously giggled as they greeted each other with elbow bumps and then squeezed into a poorly ventilated room to hear a panel about new copyright regulations.

We’re so lucky we didn’t all get seriously sick, she thinks now. But, remembering that day is a helpful reference to who she was then to who she is now: a healthier person who feels better in her body.

Patrick turns to her, cradling her body in the curve of his right arm, and asks quietly, “Why do you say that?”

“I haven’t boarded a plane, eaten in a restaurant, or gotten a manicure in a year. No wonder my back hurts less, my stomach is less bloated, and my nails no longer chip and peel.”

Vandy stops talking to yawn, covering her mouth with the back of her left hand as the memories run through her head like a slideshow. When her court appearances dissipated, so did the anxiety that usually accompanied her as a litigator—as did her stress-related rosacea. Clearly, the demands of flying around the world while keeping up a high-maintenance grooming routine were depleting her in very obvious, physical ways.

“I like feeling less Type A,” Vandy says with a lump in her throat as she snuggles into Patrick’s embrace. Within minutes she is asleep, her dreams filled with dancing through life with nothing more challenging than the Burbank Bakery running out of almond croissants.

The Trauma of Returning to the Work Place

Anil chews on the stub of the pen with which he is writing as he reviews the email from his boss: Since all employees at the healthcare start-up he works for have been vaccinated, the corporate bigwigs have decided that a return to the office can safely be ordered.

Re-entry date: May 1

Feeling a rising tide of panic rush upward through his spinal cord and into his brain, Anil can’t stop the thoughts going around and around in his brain like the bullocks they used in his father’s village to turn the water wheel. “I won’t be able to spend time with baby Arya anymore. How will my wife manage without my help?” (To read Anil’s story, go to the prior article, Here )

He snaps the computer lid shut on the offending email and paces in his office, gnawing on his bottom lip. He looks down at his feet and notices that a new layer of fat like a sausage roll covers his midsection, and spills over the haldi-stained gray sweatpants he is wearing.

“What about the ten pounds (or more) I packed on since I was last around my co-workers . . . will I even fit into my pants?”

Anil draws in a deep breath and tries valiantly to tuck in his belly. “Do I even know how to be around people anymore if we're not on Zoom?”

An electronic beep rouses him from his musings. Baby Arya sets off an ear-splitting wail just as his wife’s low and tired voice transmits through the intercom, “I’m out of diapers for the baby. Can you go grab some from the store?”

***********************************************

Two hours later, driving to the convenience store at the corner, past the greasy bus station with its choking smell of exhaust, Anil switches on the radio.

“Next on KGO,” says radio host Ron Elmer, “we talk to psychologist and professor at Adelphi University in New York, Dr. Sharon Richmond about returning to the office post-Covid-lockdown.”

“I think a lot of people are in the exact same boat of feeling really anxious about change.” Dr. Sharon says. “I invite people to think back a year ago and remember how anxiety-provoking it was to even make these changes that we’re now used to. And now we’re thinking about how weird it’s going to be going back to what we used to think was normal.”

The show host’s voice interrupts, high and nasal. “So doc, are you saying it’s a common experience to have anxiety about re-engaging?”

“Yes,” says Dr. Sharon, a quiet note of authority in her voice. “Anytime you experience a traumatic event, your return to the everyday world after healing is called re-entry,” says Dr. Sharon. “While some can shift from an extraordinary situation with moderate ease, there will be many who experience re-entry trauma—where the adjustment to the new normal causes anxiety, insecurity, depression and perhaps even re-traumatization.”

Anil flips the indicator light to signal the right-hand turn into the parking lot for a row of motley shops and drinking places. The sky framing the graffiti-encrusted walls of The Grocery Outlet is split by a mantle of cloud the color of burnished metal and in admiring the changing colors of the landscape—the sky lit with vivid pinks and purples—Anil grows calm. The dingy and ill-lighted street, the faded grey of his overused sweat pants, the dirty white of his oversized T-shirt, the bleached arc of the sky, it all recedes behind him.

He collects his grocery bag and turns off the radio just as the host is concluding the show with this upbeat message, “So, there you have it, folks. We all need to be able to just be patient with ourselves and each other to adjust. But we’re all going to get through it.”

***********************************************

Pooja Rajaram crouches in front of her fully stocked refrigerator, examining the takeaway boxes of Hakka noodles, fried chicken, pork dumplings, soups, and steamed sea bass in banana leaf. The house phone shrieks, startling her and saving her from making bad food choices. Again.

“I was just thinking,” she says to her mom minutes later, pressing the phone so hard to her ear it hurts, “that at the beginning of 2020, I finally thought I would recover from my anorexia.” She pictures her progress in beating the disease that has plagued her for fifteen years and mentally checks off the milestones she’s completed. I started seeing a nutritionist and a therapist. I began doing yoga, working as an analyst for a health care company, barista-ing at a coffee shop. That meant little time for overexercising and undereating.

“Then the pandemic happened and threw a huge wrench in my recovery,” she continues, making a small fragile noise as if choking on something small and fluffy. “The rationing of food, the loss of a regimented schedule. It all happened so quickly. It was the perfect ground for unhealthy coping mechanisms to start sucking me in.”

“I understand,” her mom tuts in sympathy. “I was reading an article that said, when the world feels out of control, people want to have control over something. Often, it’s what you put in your mouth.”

Pooja is only half listening as a loud ping alerts her to an incoming email from her boss.

“Since everybody is now vaccinated, yadda yadda.

Re-entry date: May 1, 2021.”

Pooja bumps a fist into the air and mouths a silent ‘Yes’. She can’t wait to return to work.

The Gold-Digging Women of The British Raj*

Princess Brinda Devi’s heart was like the black hole of a coal mine—it was so dense that there was no room for light, and so deep she was afraid it would suck her in. She told herself she pitied Stella, but heard laughter answering her—how difficult it was to deceive yourself when you had known yourself a full thirty-nine years.

She had a servant summon Stella to her sitting room in the afternoon when the Prince had gone to a Royal Heads of State meeting. When Stella came before her, Princess Brinda did not speak, but rose from the Divan and removed Stella’s sari palav from her shoulder, as if in welcome, so she could study the girl.

In the afternoon sun filtering through the stained-glass windows of the palace at Kapurthala, she examined Stella’s red hair, cupid lips, and long, slim legs. A man could lose himself in the strands of that hair—so like burnished copper—softened by amla and scented by coconut. Unlike Brinda’s, it had no need yet for henna. A man could kiss those red lips for hours and they would look fuller and more luscious for the bruising. Brinda’s hands dropped to Stella’s neck and encircled it lightly, for she was not trying to frighten her.

And she saw Prince Param had given her a Kundan necklace, one of her own. She knew the gold of this one well because she had ordered it from the goldsmith herself, she knew every link of it and the sheen of its red enamel. She had worn it last at a party full of Europeans. Its brilliance and its weight had comforted her, compensation for her tongue-tied state; the European ladies ignored her once they found out she spoke no English.

And Stella was wearing it.

Brinda wanted to tear it from the hollow in Stella’s neck, she wanted to press her thumbnail in that hollow until Stella’s red blood spurted and dripped over them both.

But, she moved her hands away.

“Come, lie with me in the afternoons,“ she said instead. “You are alone on your side of the palace, I am alone on my side.” Stella stood mute, an uncomprehending look on her face.

Stella may have born in the UK but she was no longer a stranger to the shenanigans of a princely harem under the British Raj.

Brinda could see on Stella’s face the memories flashing like the shifting scenes of a cinematograph: the job she’d got in a chorus at London’s Little Theater. The company going to Paris where the promoters of ‘Folies Bergere’ were impressed by her looks and extrovert nature and thought she’d be better suited to a nightclub cabaret. Prince Param Singh of Kapurthala attending the show with his wife Brinda Devi and falling for the eighteen-year-old dancer. After the show, the prince coming backstage and presenting her with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, and then following her wherever she went, attending all her shows.

Stella started as Brinda Devi’s voice interrupted her stream of consciousness thoughts.

“Come,” Brinda said again. “It is useless for me to fight the prince’s will; he is my husband, he has brought you here. Somehow, I must accept that—and you.” Stella’s face lighted up like a diya at Diwali.

“Oh, Bhainji.” Sister.

Brinda Devi did not feel sisterly at all.

“Oh, Bhainji,” Stella said in her stilted accent. “I’m so glad. I told the Prince, I will be no trouble. I will just be like a younger sister.”

And her silly tears fell on Brinda’s hand as she led the girl to the porch swing in the courtyard. On the gallery that ran past their rooms, a punkhawalla (or fan operator) spat a red stream of paan, then squatted, his back to the wall. With a rope over one shoulder, he leaned into the pulling rhythm. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Why was Stella so trusting? How could she be so confident that she would produce a child? How could Stella not look at her, Brinda, and think: This is what I might become?

Barren and childless.

Although if Stella was to get pregnant, her baby would still be illegitimate. Birla Devi closed her eyes and sighed in relief as the breeze from the punkha moved from her to Stella and back again.

*******************************************************************************

It was exactly one month later that Stella stood quivering, her heart racing as she studied the enamel patterns around the imposing oak doorway leading to His Highness Maharaj Jagatjit Singh's quarters.

A liveried attendant wearing a tie-die Laharia turban beckoned her inside and gestured for her to sit in a beautifully-appointed waiting-room. Though there was bright sunlight outside, all the lights were on and the crystals in the chandeliers twinkled like stars. A wall-to-wall Persian carpet covered the floor. The vaulted ceiling high above her depicted the courtship of Ram and Sita in paint and stucco relief. And, on the walls, Sikh history: portraits of former Maharajas wearing brocade chugas and leaning on jeweled swords. Or, in riding gear, ready for a hunt.

Facing her were three damask sofas, the middle one occupied by a short man of about sixty wearing a pearl necklace and a blue satin robe with feathers in his turban. He was stout, with many folds like rows of sausages on his neck. He was playing Patience, the cards spread in front of him on a polished mahogany table.

It was the first time Stella had stood in front of the ruler of the state and she felt a tickle in her throat. But he was at pains to put her at ease—sharing with her in dulcet tones the favor he needed from her. Since Brinda couldn’t beget a son, the Maharaja wanted to marry off Prince Param again. He had found for him a suitable Rajput girl from Kangra, Lilawati Devi. Now, he disclosed to Stella’s horror—that the Prince had unwillingly been forced into this union.

“But, there is one tiny problem,” the Maharaja said languidly, stroking the ends of his handlebar salt-and-pepper mustache. “Prince Param will not go near his bride. He said ‘she a junglee, unlike my worldly-wise Stella.’”

Maharaj Jagatjit extracted a card from a deck and contemplated where to put it, deciding finally to lay it face down on the table, then focused his laser-eye view on Stella.

“You see, Stella,” the Maharaja said mournfully, “only you can persuade Paramjit to consummate his marriage to Lilavati.”

Stella bit her cheek until she tasted blood. The morning sickness she’d had for the last two months emboldened her to do what came next.

She would do as the Maharaja instructed, she said, swallowing the lump in her throat, but she would need a million rupees for the job.

Incredibly, the Maharaja agreed.

That night she forced the Prince to go to the bed of Lilavati but no, Lord Param wouldn’t go. Finally, Stella had to concoct a fight with Lord Param, throw him out of her boudoir and direct his faltering steps to the zenana (harem) and the waiting bride. Son and heir Sukhjit Singh was conceived that night.

*******************************************************************************

Prince Param never went to the zenana again and the very next day along with Stella left the shores of India. In 1937 Stella got married to Prince Param Singh at a Gurudwara in England and was renamed, Narinder Kaur.

“Ever since I saw you dance like you had diamonds at the meeting of your thighs, you’ve had my heart,” he said as he pressed his face into the crook of her neck, breathing in the faint dry warmth of her scent—of lilacs and Pears soap.

*This is a break from my usual stories about the impact of covid, and pandemic life. It is a work of fiction but based on real events.

Pre-Order THE AWAKENING OF MEENA RAWAT

Calling all #writers #authors #poets #dreamers:

I was incredibly lucky to be interviewed recently by the founder of the “Women in our Town” podcast based in Canada. Check out the article for tips for writers and those who aspire to be published: Here

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I am overjoyed to announce that THE AWAKENING OF MEENA RAWAT is available for pre-order NOW and ONLY at https://www.blackrosewriting.com/literary/theawakeningofmeenarawat. If you purchase the book prior to the publication date of May 27, 2021, you may use the promo code: PREORDER2021 to receive a 15% discount.

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THE FIRST TIME I EVER. . .(An Ode To All Mothers)

This is where I would shop if my husband worked felling trees for the mill, hurting himself badly from time to time; where I would bring my three kids; where I would push one basket and pull another because the boxes of diapers and cereal and gallon milk jugs take so much room. . . […]

The post THE FIRST TIME I EVER. . .(An Ode To All Mothers) appeared first on Anoop Ahuja Judge.