About Author : Lt Cdr Bijay Nair (retd), 43 years is an ex Indian Naval Officer and is a proud Fauji to the core. A sports enthusiast, runs marathons to fight thyroid, write blogs , a story teller , blogger who loves writing humor. Co Founder of Did You Read Today and Did You Write Today.
From My Balcony
As i stood there;
I Can see the world unwind.
Occasional laughter's of the passersby;
Honking of the cars sometimes;
A wailing kid and a cat’s purr;
Barking dogs and the pizza boy….
As i stood there …..i can see the world unwind.
Picture : Source Internet
Today was an usual morning , because I was to take a workout session for a group of friends who had thrusted …..or rather trusted me with this so i was restless a bit .As I inched closer to my cupboard, my running gears were looking ambitiously at me ,inching to go for a quick run. Yet another lockdown day …. as I was sulking, I could see my wife and daughter waking up. I kept looking at them , these are things I missed during my yesteryears . I could have seen them waking up on a lazy Sunday, but Sundays for me is a different affair, my love towards long distance running took priority there (selfish me) .
As she woke up my daughter drew my attention towards the pair of Parrot which arrived looking for people. By Gods grace and with blessings of parents, we are lucky to stay in a beautiful housing complex in Mumbai. Complex has its own share of greenery with few trees and few gardens. Occasionally we could hear few foreign birds chirping. Hello …. wait, are they really foreign or my present condition made me disorient.
Mom affirmed that the symphony of chirping birds has new added tunes now, however she was not new to this. My parents stay with us, we are blessed and once we get busy with our busy work schedule they mould in to their homely chores and day to day work, this is how it happens on a normal day .
But today was different in to 8th day of lockdown, life is a bit different. Ironically in February this year post the happenings in Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province, I read an article , mentioning a similar situation in 1918 , when Spanish flu had spread its pangs and was declared as a pandemic. It was mentioned in article how death spread its fear all over and how there were similar lockdowns and mayhem in many parts of the world.
In my weirdest dream , I could have never imagined a lockdown in the modern era . Time and again we have heard this phrase that humans are superior over all other creatures including matter, molecules , atoms , blah , blah…..and like me most of us believed we are the supreme power . Did we ever imagine , about containment to the limits of our house ,no, …. when spain and Italy went in lockdown, it slowly started sinking in …..oops will the ever busy Mumbai be under a shut down . Days preceding to it were days of uncertainty with Nifty , NSE , BSE and markets crashing world over and with death engulfing world , with Nityandha boy owning his own island and dinichak pooja releasing a yuck album.
I read a Instagram post “Earth is under maintenance” …. It stuck a chord with me, true earth is healing with all the industrialization and modernization, with depleting levels of ozone and increasing numbers of cacophony, it was high time for earth to recalibrate. Earth in its earnest decided to have a course correction… corona being the medium….
As i stand in my balcony these days , I do feel , my balcony is the best place in the world . I had been to many countries, but today this is the best place I know. Stories have been created from balcony . Love stories have sprung. Sorrows witnessed.
Luckily for me , i have a balcony which I ignored for years . I am not a big fan of this little space. Post dengue , I never step out on balcony , but today this is that 80 odd sqft which connects me and my folks to the world , this is same place from where we belted our gratitude during janta curfew . Being in to fitness I try my best to keep my routine of fitness going albeit bit modification like indoor running ( I did few runs and trust me it is boring , may be wont run any further ) , but I have become a big fan of indoor cycling (on trainer) and balcony theraband workout, my balcony grills are now tied up with resistance bands.
Everyday when evening dawns , when sun retires from this part of world and when rustic moonlight spread its warmth that’s when , I could see moon smiling and giggling at me almost every day as if saying “bhai saahab , khud ko sambhalo abhi , bade aaye tehe, Vikram ko lekar , abh tumse ek virus nahi sambal raha ( bro , take care of yourself first, you were boasting about you along with Vikram lander, now you can’t bloody contain a virus) . I kept staring at moon from my balcony with a thought and song in my mind , chanda rey , chanda rey…..zameen pe aa…. moon ignored me big time….
I continued to be in my little new found place with occasional mosquito bites and there was nothing interesting to see too, ……… and could hear the dogs howling at peak of their voice that too 8pm , which otherwise was scheduled mostly at 2am in night……have they invaded the world ….no no Apna time phir aayega………with this thought i stood gazing from my balcony.