No more Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday – every day is Coviday. I could sense that today is Sunday as Dad held out a pair of scissors to me even before I’d shuffled out of bed. He was up and ready for a Covid-cut. Having settled him on a stool, I wondered if he needed frequent haircuts or visited the salon weekly before the lockdown, and I was sure his lack of option was the reason of his confidence in me.
Every time I chopped off some strays, he hysterically looked into the mirror as though my approach to his haircut was no better than the Government’s approach to NEP 2020. Scrapping one ear from his head or scrapping M. Phil degree from academics is the same thing.
Neither the shutdown nor Sunday was coming around well. I got five missed calls for a distraction. I called back, and somebody literally yawned, ‘Ma’am, online class?’
‘Aren’t you the same guy who crashes the Meet classes, deletes the study material from the mailbox shared by the whole class and spam class What’sApp group with selfies?’
Instead I just said, ‘Find the meaning of Covidiot.’ And the call ended.
I guess he ran to find the answer as quickly as Serum India wanted to register Covaxin in August before anyone else did.
I wish by now Mom’s obsession with getting me ready for marriage would have been flattened, if not the Corona curve. If it weren’t for the fact I openly specify that a girl should marry if she is in love, if she can’t pay her own bill, or if she is ready to be a bride, I would not be surprised if Mom thinks getting married can be a pressing need in these uncertain times in the line of building temple, election campaign, nepotism debate in Bollywood.
Never one to miss the opportunity, dear stupid brother, who is at home on Coronacation, forwards a Covideo to the family What’sApp group in which a groom sails to the bride’s home in flood on a banana tree raft. He too left a comment below, ‘That’s the spirit you lack.’ I quickly wrote back, ‘Because I have logical sense, what a Covidea it is to get married during a global pandemic… to honeymoon in Covington, to bring a Coronial to this world. Dad replied, ‘We got married during Covid-0, how come we gave birth to you both, Covid38?’ Mom’s still typing.
From ‘nature is rebooting’, Mom’s metric has changed to ‘I am only working’. She was very pissed off with the maid who had not showed up since Unlock. Meanwhile, the maid appeared on Sunday afternoon despite the weekend lockdown, which can be roughly translated as — she was bored or needed something or could explain her absence.
So she went very neatly, ‘I am deliberately not coming. Oh lord, how can I bring that disease into your home?’
Until WHO officially reports the rise of this particular 420 strain of Coronavirus making everyone miss their work, I simply gave her a mask to cover her face if she really wanted to be safe and also keep us Covid clean. She was gone as the cases are gone from some parts of the world, only to reappear in 100 days.
