Family

October is the festive season in India. You don’t have to be particularly religious to join in the exchange of good wishes between friends and family members all over the world on the day of “Vijaya Dashami,” which literally translates to “the tenth day of victory” and signifies victory of good over evil after nine days of hard-fought battle.

 

This year the celebrations were contained due the pandemic, but that was all the more reason to escalate the virtual exchange of greetings, because people are more connected to one another now to compensate for the social isolation. I am no exception. I was dispensing Vijaya Dashami wishes generously to my cousins in India---I come from a big and well-connected family, so lots of cousins, uncles, and aunts to wish---when my phone rang. It was one of my cousins. I was pretty sure she was calling me back to wish. But I was not at all prepared to hear the news that she shared. Apparently one of my other cousins, a thirty-something-year-old youngster, suffered a cerebral attack and needed brain surgery!

 

My heart sank. Not again! Four years ago, almost on the same date in late October, we lost another cousin and her son to a gruesome road accident. At least they did not suffer long—both passed away pretty much at the scene of the accident. This year has been more cruel. My father-in-law was struck by a motorbike and suffered severe brain damage. He was in the intensive care unit for two months before coming home, but never recovered. After four months of pain and suffering, he finally passed away in late August. We are still mourning his passing. Now we have another crisis!

 

Picturing my cousin under ventilation, his skull open for the surgery, made me feel nauseous. I forced myself to think of the recent happy memory, when he and I sang a karaoke duet—assisted by technology, i.e., we sang separately and then my cousin mixed the two tracks—he is a budding musician. As I often do when faced with a crisis, especially one where you cannot physically be present at the scene to be of any use, I distracted myself with work.

 

But work cannot be a substitute for the comfort that you get from human interaction. I totally cherished the unplanned moment when both my husband and I came downstairs from our home offices to microwave our lunch. We caught a glimpse of our son playing with the dog in the backyard—it was his lunch break too. Suddenly I was thankful for this far-from-normal circumstance that forced all of us to be at home on a normal workday.

 

I had tennis coaching scheduled in the afternoon that day. I considered skipping the lesson. But then I realized if I am looking for a distraction that is even more effective than work, that is most definitely tennis!

 

In the last two and half years, tennis not only brought fitness and pure joy to my world, but also created a whole new family for me. Family is who you shelter with when you have to weather a crisis. My tennis family (and a few other close friends who do not necessarily play tennis, but follow the game closely enough to chime in on tennis talk) has been essential to keep my soul nourished through this strange year, even when the courts were closed for two months, and since the reopening of the courts in mid-May. The collective sense of belonging with a common purpose—to me that is the definition of family!

 

Thankfully the latest update on my cousin’s condition is promising. The brain surgery was successful and he is regaining consciousness. I count my blessings that I have my families—here and in India—to draw strength from, and make the journey with my cousin as he embarks on the long road to recovery.

200-plus days! 200,000-plus dead! And a sick President!

 In the beginning of the lockdown, I used to journal at least one COVID-related event, observation or thought each day. And my Sunday afternoon ritual was to compile those daily entries into a weekly blog entry—almost John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight”-style.

 

Then writing every day seemed like an over-reaction to what became the new normal. And before I blink, another 100-plus days passed by without me blogging. I have a definitive way to tell. Because my last blog entry is titled, “100 Days!”

 

I was planning to write a blog on the 200^th day. I realize how you count the number of days is subjective. I started counting from March 17, when California officially went into “shelter-in-place” by Governor Newsom’s order. That makes October 2, 2020 the 200^th day by my count. But October 1, 2020 late night came with such a shock, that I needed a few more days to digest the happenings all around me before collecting my thoughts to write something.

 

The President, who never seriously took his own risk of becoming ill with COVID-19, finally was tested positive and had to be hospitalized because he had serious symptoms. While nobody wants the President to suffer and the country to fall into disarray, one can only hope that finally people learn to lament the 200,000-plus American lives (almost 210,000 by today's count)  that have been lost, and don’t claim a false victory over the fact that the models that predicted even higher death rates by this time have been proven wrong! Of course the death rate is lower because a large number of people took reasonable precautionary measures to keep themselves safe and keep others around them safe. 

 

Let’s just accept the fact that the country does have a sick President. It takes a special brand of hubris to go against medical experts’ suggestions and take a victory lap in a motorcade to ensure the “fans” that the President sprang back to health! I guess sometimes it is hard to miss even the dubious accolades when there is a chance of a superlative being legitimately added before your name---"No. 1 super-spreader” of the country!