Month: August 2020

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve personally been finding it tougher to bring joy into my life.

A lot had to do with the random spondylitis-type-neck stuff which laid me back for 3 weeks. A lot has to do with the fact that at least in India, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight to the pandemic, and things are getting worse by the day. Which also means all our plans, vacations, life etc. is on hold indefinitely. And while it’s easy to keep joking about dismissing 2020 as a year, it’s also difficult to forget that time hasn’t actually stopped, and 2021 might not be that different.

So, more and more, specially on the bad days, I’m trying to remember the tiny things that bring me joy.

1. Getting out of hole-y pajamas. Be it an after-effect of an entire weekend bingeing Queer Eye, but I spent two days cleaning out my wardrobe – which had become reduced to pajamas and shorts and old worn out t-shirts. Everything else was dying somewhere in the dark corners, hoping for a pandemic free day to be worn. Well, that brighter day is nowhere to be seen in the near-future. Might as well feel good about yourself in prettier clothes, even if at home. In fact, specially when stuck at home. Believe me, it helps. Pssttt. I even put on a bra.
2. Saying hi to my plants. Yes, you read that right. Not only am I talking in plural now, I’m even talking to them. Yes, it feels silly. But it also leaves me with a huge smile on my face. And hopefully they like it enough to actually survive this time.
3. A fresh bedsheet. A & I aren’t the biggest on keeping stuff super clean. I mean, there is always so much laundry to do. And clothes > bedsheets. Which means the same bedsheet gets used for a certain period of time that I’d rather not specify on a public forum. But that one day when it’s changed, and is neatly tucked into every corner, crisp with a lingering hint of the fragrance of a fabric conditioner – that’s the best sleep ever.
4. Coffee, served extra hot. This one’s a no-brainer. Like I haven’t bored each and every one of you with a pic of coffee every day. In my defence, I actually only have that one cup a day, and it’s something that I really really look forward to. But that first sip of piping hot coffee to start the day….sigh.
5. Unexpected messages. From old friends, from people who were never friends but you’re drawn to, from family, from ex-colleagues. This has been one of the most beautiful things this year, and I absolutely love it.
6. Hope. I can’t believe I just wrote that word. It’s the one word I have an extreme love-hate relationship with. But in times like these, how do you possibly get through the day without it. Without hope that we’ll meet our families super soon. That we’ll be able to take vacations soon. That we’ll meet a friend and hug them without thinking twice. That tomorrow is going to be better, soonish.

Firstly, let me just say, I never actually minded pigeons. I mean sure, they don’t always seem to possess the highest IQ, and sure, it’s slightly creepy how they look at you sideways, and it can be downright annoying the way their head moves when they make a sound that has been best described in our language as gutar-goo. But for the record, I never really minded pigeons.

But for some weird reason, pigeons started loving our tiny excuse of a balcony. To hide behind the AC unit in. To build nests in. And to downright poop all over in. I mean, who poops where they sleep and are about to push out their babies? Answer, pigeons do. And poop they do a lot.

And A & I dealt with it in the way we knew best – by ignoring it.

This had always been a great solution when there was a maid around who also for the most part chose to ignore it, but could be nudged every few days to begrudgingly scrub and clean it out.

But now, given that it was just us, this misfired a tiny wee bit.

Just enough that our balcony soon seemed to have an altogether new multi-coloured flooring.

So we came up with the next best solution. We stopped stepping out onto the balcony.

But then it started raining and for the first time in our lives we actually enjoyed this season given that we could sit inside comfortably sipping coffee and feeling all insta-poetic without worrying about wading through muck with dead rats floating around you and… wait, wrong post. This is not the place to crib about Monsoons Shreya…

So I finally opened the balcony door, ignored the sight & smell of the floor, and sat on the sofa next to it, enjoying the breeze. The pigeons looked at me skeptically and flew away with a sinister look, giving me an ultimatum to not be there when they got back. But nature had other plans. It suddenly started to pour, which clearly took one Mr. Pigeon by surprise, enough to drench him and send him flying right back, all the way inside our house, onto my sofa to snuggle comfortably next to me. I have to admit at this point, surprisingly, I screamed much more than the pigeon did. It seemed to be in shock and just looked at me with a sideways wtf lady expression. But in my defence, this isn’t the first time that a pigeon has fallen on me while indoors (another story for another time), and the last time it ended up scratching me pretty badly.

So we finally decided enough was enough.

We had the balcony deep cleaned (took the guy hours, just to give you a perspective of the multi-layered pooping). And decided to have a pigeon net installed. Though the netting didn’t happen for another two days, which meant A & I effectively turned into human scare crows for the next 48 hours, running out mid surya-namaskar to chase away pigeons before they pooped. We *may* have inadvertently caused some pigeons to poop out of the sheer surprise of having a human jump out at you screaming for no good reason.

But now the net is secure.

And so is our balcony.

And Mr. & Mrs. Pigeon can go make out somewhere else (seriously, the amount of pigeon sex I’ve noticed this season isn’t even funny).

The End.

Was your weekend more happening than mine?