No this post is not about fear. It is about creative ways to unlock and move past this deadlock (literally) to a more meaningful life.
"Fear is the lock and laughter the key to your heart" - the lines from one of my favorite songs came to mind today as I sat down to journal. Yesterday they opened liquor stores and the hordes descended on them, masked, unmasked and shoving one another around. And as you guessed it, liquor is a mood elevator. People lose their inhibitions. People dare to smile.
Maybe that's what the booze binge was about? Designed to disarm before coming down with a new clamp?
Clearly EVERYONE had a smile this morning. The smiles were so broad they were pushing and prodding the edges of masks to burst out. It's only a matter of time before the masks fall off but watch it - fetters may be clamped in their place! Meanwhile one can hope for the best while preparing for yet more nasty surprises. Henceforward my posts will be about co-creating that "best" with like minded people.
I for one, decided not to surrender my power to words pitched at me by others. I will not own them or let them own me. Lockaround, lockdown, lockup and lockaway are old hat.
Walkdown-Walkaround-Lookaround-Walkup-and-Write is the new mantra.
I am tired of counting days, forwards or backwards. This circus has crossed its sell-by date and inch by inch people will take back their lives. All's good as long as people don't inch towards me, which is the one dread I have. One thing we need to learn from these agonizing couple of months is to keep physical distance from fellow citizens you don't know. To respect their space. To be warm without being pushy. And to show concern and consideration. Staying three feet away from a fellow shopper needn't be connected with a virus. It's plain courtesy and decency. Today a mask has become an excuse for inching closer to the old ways. The mask feels like a cure-all and the wearer feels safe and armed with special powers.
To return to the weirdest six weeks of my life (nope, I have seen more bizarre things but not the whole world in one manic sweep) halfway through the tamasha, cops wearied of swinging their sticks at people. Methinks it's back to "your cops and my cops are having tea with our cops". And halfway through the tamasha people started looming over other people and breathing under their collars
Today I thought I felt somebody else's nose slip into my mask. Fortunately I am nimble enough to skip aside 10 feet in one leap. Now THIS has to stop forever, the world over.
Yesterday's booze bash has certainly changed the mood but is the situation changing? It may be another TRAP and something more horrendous could be slapped down on us. Methinks this time there is no submitting and getting away. There is no time like NOW for the long awaited revolution - one that arises from a creative wellspring. Because the monster that brought on this unprecedented and monumentally (should I write deliberately?) mismanaged predicament, is slowly slipping away from the foreground sans any evidence of either its containment or the devastation wrought by it, while the noose just keeps tightening in its name.
Returning to my report on today's feel-good outing I leave you with a Lockabout Lookabout
Today was interesting. As I turned into the passage on my way out for the milk, I noticed cigarette butts - plenty of them strewn on the ground. Looks like somebody had enjoyed a smoke-binge there. Was my nose blocked? Or was it one of the neighbors simply emptying an ashtray that had filled up after weeks?
I headed out and found people walking by with a spring in their step.
I sniffed the air just to make sure my sense of smell was active - I'm told that losing it could be a symptom of the C-demon.
Headed briskly to Rajkumar Sabji-and-Phal-wala's little squat-spot and was greeted in passing by the dude in the green T-shirt who lives down the lane and sits under a lamppost with his brown bread seated next to him 3 inches from the road, reading the paper and ... yes .... spitting. He Goodmorninged me through a tight black mask which I saw expand as he grinned behind it.
At Rajkumar's I chose my booty of two bananas, a couple of limes, two carrots and a baby pumpkin - not much today - and trotted Mashiwards - the milk booth womanned by Krishna Mashi for the uninitiated. Found out that shops were opening up in the morning hours and it's best to get there between 8 and 12. Now tell me how many times does one dash out of the house, dash up again, soap and scrub only to head out again an hour later?
Two good friends greeted me as I cantered home. One was Jogindar Sabjiwala on cycle - lest we forget he's the original one who used to home-deliver before this crisis left his partner stranded in his village - with his cheery Namaste and ear-to-ear grin that all but popped off his mask. I was delighted to look into the warm brown eyes that were illuminated twice over with his smile. A few yards closer to home I saw a familiar figure lumbering towards me. It was my good Christian neighbor and friend of sixty odd years. We raised hands in salute and grinning through his mask he called out "Heil Hitler". I was smiling all the way home recalling an episode in November '16 soon after Demongate. Our man was heading down the road carrying, to my amusement, a long handled broom of the sort that the KMC staff use to relocate the trash on the road from point A to point B and then back to point A "Who are you planning to flog with that?" I'd called out, feigning amazement. No doubt he had been hauling it back from Jadu Babu's Bazaar to use in his yard. And bang came the reply - no prizes for guessing what the reply was! Of course the Villain of Demongate! Thank goodness for a sane neighbor in these times of strife. This brings a memory of me holding aloft a gigantic sugar cane plant and marching home from the same bazaar one evening in 1978. And a later memory of me holding aloft a jhool-jhaaru and marching down the same road in broad daylight, attracting a number of curious followers. It's time now for the neighbor, myself and all like minded folks to march - 10 feet apart and masked - carrying flags of protest. And change that our minds and hands take charge of. Time for the revolution - yes I mentioned that earlier in the post
PS1 - Lest we forget that keys relate to locks, I am naming this series Lockabout. The inspiration is from Kanchana SS whose "lockaround-roundabout" I abbreviated.
PS2 - All references are to my country, happenings are from my area in my city and the goings on here.
"Fear is the lock and laughter the key to your heart" - the lines from one of my favorite songs came to mind today as I sat down to journal. Yesterday they opened liquor stores and the hordes descended on them, masked, unmasked and shoving one another around. And as you guessed it, liquor is a mood elevator. People lose their inhibitions. People dare to smile.
Maybe that's what the booze binge was about? Designed to disarm before coming down with a new clamp?
Clearly EVERYONE had a smile this morning. The smiles were so broad they were pushing and prodding the edges of masks to burst out. It's only a matter of time before the masks fall off but watch it - fetters may be clamped in their place! Meanwhile one can hope for the best while preparing for yet more nasty surprises. Henceforward my posts will be about co-creating that "best" with like minded people.
I for one, decided not to surrender my power to words pitched at me by others. I will not own them or let them own me. Lockaround, lockdown, lockup and lockaway are old hat.
Walkdown-Walkaround-Lookaround-Walkup-and-Write is the new mantra.
I am tired of counting days, forwards or backwards. This circus has crossed its sell-by date and inch by inch people will take back their lives. All's good as long as people don't inch towards me, which is the one dread I have. One thing we need to learn from these agonizing couple of months is to keep physical distance from fellow citizens you don't know. To respect their space. To be warm without being pushy. And to show concern and consideration. Staying three feet away from a fellow shopper needn't be connected with a virus. It's plain courtesy and decency. Today a mask has become an excuse for inching closer to the old ways. The mask feels like a cure-all and the wearer feels safe and armed with special powers.
To return to the weirdest six weeks of my life (nope, I have seen more bizarre things but not the whole world in one manic sweep) halfway through the tamasha, cops wearied of swinging their sticks at people. Methinks it's back to "your cops and my cops are having tea with our cops". And halfway through the tamasha people started looming over other people and breathing under their collars
Today I thought I felt somebody else's nose slip into my mask. Fortunately I am nimble enough to skip aside 10 feet in one leap. Now THIS has to stop forever, the world over.
Yesterday's booze bash has certainly changed the mood but is the situation changing? It may be another TRAP and something more horrendous could be slapped down on us. Methinks this time there is no submitting and getting away. There is no time like NOW for the long awaited revolution - one that arises from a creative wellspring. Because the monster that brought on this unprecedented and monumentally (should I write deliberately?) mismanaged predicament, is slowly slipping away from the foreground sans any evidence of either its containment or the devastation wrought by it, while the noose just keeps tightening in its name.
Returning to my report on today's feel-good outing I leave you with a Lockabout Lookabout
Today was interesting. As I turned into the passage on my way out for the milk, I noticed cigarette butts - plenty of them strewn on the ground. Looks like somebody had enjoyed a smoke-binge there. Was my nose blocked? Or was it one of the neighbors simply emptying an ashtray that had filled up after weeks?
I headed out and found people walking by with a spring in their step.
I sniffed the air just to make sure my sense of smell was active - I'm told that losing it could be a symptom of the C-demon.
Rajkumar Sabji-and-Phal-Wala
Rajkumar's Squat-Spot aka Shop
At Rajkumar's I chose my booty of two bananas, a couple of limes, two carrots and a baby pumpkin - not much today - and trotted Mashiwards - the milk booth womanned by Krishna Mashi for the uninitiated. Found out that shops were opening up in the morning hours and it's best to get there between 8 and 12. Now tell me how many times does one dash out of the house, dash up again, soap and scrub only to head out again an hour later?
Two good friends greeted me as I cantered home. One was Jogindar Sabjiwala on cycle - lest we forget he's the original one who used to home-deliver before this crisis left his partner stranded in his village - with his cheery Namaste and ear-to-ear grin that all but popped off his mask. I was delighted to look into the warm brown eyes that were illuminated twice over with his smile. A few yards closer to home I saw a familiar figure lumbering towards me. It was my good Christian neighbor and friend of sixty odd years. We raised hands in salute and grinning through his mask he called out "Heil Hitler". I was smiling all the way home recalling an episode in November '16 soon after Demongate. Our man was heading down the road carrying, to my amusement, a long handled broom of the sort that the KMC staff use to relocate the trash on the road from point A to point B and then back to point A
"Who are you planning to flog with that?" I'd called out, feigning amazement. No doubt he had been hauling it back from Jadu Babu's Bazaar to use in his yard. And bang came the reply - no prizes for guessing what the reply was! Of course the Villain of Demongate! Thank goodness for a sane neighbor in these times of strife. This brings a memory of me holding aloft a gigantic sugar cane plant and marching home from the same bazaar one evening in 1978. And a later memory of me holding aloft a jhool-jhaaru and marching down the same road in broad daylight, attracting a number of curious followers. It's time now for the neighbor, myself and all like minded folks to march - 10 feet apart and masked - carrying flags of protest. And change that our minds and hands take charge of. Time for the revolution - yes I mentioned that earlier in the postPS1 - Lest we forget that keys relate to locks, I am naming this series Lockabout. The inspiration is from Kanchana SS whose "lockaround-roundabout" I abbreviated.
PS2 - All references are to my country, happenings are from my area in my city and the goings on here.
I am honoured. Poured over each word.... for me they are like manna from heavenz
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