Lock-down 2020

#179

This year has put everyone to sleep; it has left us in cuts and bruises in the mind. The daily routine being trampled over to a lock-down living. Actually we never heard the word “lock-down” or “pandemic” and now we hear nothing else; imprisoned in our homes. 2020 is a cusp year - hopefully we change from a greedy consumerist society to a responsible eco-friendly living. Prayerfully!!

            3 full months – April, May, and June – have gone down the river of time; add 10 days of March and the count is over a hundred days of lockdown (25% of the year gone down the drain). How did this impact me? My loan process keeps getting delayed as a medieval curse which meant no earning or activity for 6 months of 2020. This year had this whimsical run on me. These are the residual memories:
 a)     Jan and Feb were two months when I felt the full force of apathy. I kept railing: The world is a maha selfish place, it cares no two hoots for me. Then these high-voltage energy thoughts stabilized to a rationale: It is the cost of living in a mass based society. We are besieged by numbers; we are rats in an army. Either fall in line or be swamped. And I am the rat that got run over!!!!   
b)     My notes on “Alexander the Great” in January; “Bhagavad Gita” recording in May, or resuming the “word study” in ages felt a tailwind for keeping the mind in good humour. But as the lock-down days kept piling, I found myself slipping into self-doubt and waiting (for the loan).  
c)      For a month – between May and June – I enjoyed the sea breeze on the terrace. I gave myself a 45 min schedule for a bit of chanting, knee exercises and listening to songs. But these days I am far too lazy. Now I content with 90 min of Vipassana and consume a lot of self-defeating television hours. I am ashamed to have consumed 9 episodes of "Aarya" and two full seasons of “24” (48 episodes in my hall of shame). When I am on a TV spell, I know I have hit my psychological bottom. The only redeeming factor is “Colt Clark and the quarantine kids”. There’s a 6 years old girl there who invokes a surrogate parent in me. Bellamy is too cute; this family band fills me with endorphins for a YouTube watch.  
        For me, living is mostly in the mind and so I should not crib too much on lock-down. More than fear of contracting Covid 19 or chained to a home, my main crib is “not trading”. More than money, stock market trading affords me thrills and spills. It’s an arena to test your hypothesis. When Glenmark reached a high of Rs.550, I planned a paper trade of shorting a lot. In less than three hours the stock went down to Rs. 475 and I would have made over 90 k for a “mental high” over a premise: a stock cannot have a 35% upside in two days and hope to stay there. The “options chains” said so in the morning and I danced with joy for a gut feel validation. Then it feels a flat tyre; easy earnings no longer possible as the loan is inordinately delayed.

            Slowly I stumbled on this insight on the "22 years of heart surgery" self-celebrations: Life is about waiting, patience and humility. It helps if you have curiosity and during these lock-down months my curiosity quotient is dry. Still I managed to hit on this insight: Most people particularly women lead an insular and minuscule life upon marriage and kids. To these brahmahastis; their world begins and ends with their kids. My siblings would have died of despair if a marriage or kids were denied. It would have driven them to an lunatic home while I frolic on my freedom. My immediate frustrations are the constraints of a  “minimum balance” living. I want my knees examined by a seventh generation Ayurveda specialist in the neighbourhood that T H Iyer mama speaks highly off, resume the SPARRC exercises for which I need a two wheeler, and a bit of swimming and guitar. That these activities have to wait a loan sanction is what is eating my soul. But I guess the answers should be out by middle of July – one way or the other. 
              What is boredom? No new thoughts in reading; books feel a weight on the mind and as insipid as masticating a chapathi in my IMT days. No new songs to dance; no new thoughts for the mind to revel. Then I console myself: wait for the monsoons that are near at hand. The South West would bring the smell of earth and the murmurs of a drizzle to a furnace city. Wait for the tailwinds of a loan sanction. Wait.