Today was just lovely

(these stream-of-consciousness days)

Jan 05, 2025

Today was just lovely. It was a Saturday and I had a birthday party to go to and a Trust meeting to attend.

And I didn't go to either.

Two days earlier, I was completely laid up in bed with fever and a runny stomach, and was largely unable to do much except lie down flat on my bed, inside a rajai pulled up to my chin.

I now know my room's ceiling well.

It's a strange world, that of being a sick. The bedside table has a tray with a thermometer, the prescription folded into two, and strips of various capsules and tablets. There's a water glass with a white crotechted cover. And people come, looking the pink of health, rest a palm on your forehead, tut a little, ask how you are, and then go about their business, happy not to be where I was. If it's your mum or dad, they will poke a thermometer into your mouth, regardless of your protests that you'd just taken the temperature.

But I was on my own voyage of discovery.

For the first time in my life, I actually heard the sounds of my home for hours on end. The voices at the dining table, laughing, sharing, arguing, voices which I realized were in my consciousness in the most tender way possible. And then the parallel voices of Didi and Nandini in the kitchen. And Gopal's continuous chitter chatter and the quick running of his small feet, like background music to everything. And dishes clattering, the scratching of fork on plate, occasionally the soft whoosh of a wind, the sound of a child shouting from the playground below, the whirr of a machine being used in the flat above, the muffled sound of what seemed like k d lang's 'The air that I breathe' from outside. We stay on the 17th floor, and all sounds from outside come muffled and seem well-sweatered.

And throughout the day, there were the sound of footsteps - I now recognise people by the sound of how they walk. Mum's is an uneven shuffle, as if there is a thought before the step. Kakaji's is one step heavier than another, indicating the problems in one knee. Devang's is heavy, impatient, needing to reach somewhere. Darshi pulls her feet on the ground as if she wants to know the lay of the land. Tanu's is firm, purposeful, no-nonsense. Didi ambles. And I smile at the realization of how much we were of how we walked.

Yesterday as I felt slightly better, I came out into the living room. And I lay on the floor in a long patch of sunlight, and read Sumana Roy's incandescent 'Provincials'.

Didi also sat in the sun and crushed palak-methi leaves which would be used for future dishes. And she was golden and happy.

Because of my stomach upset I'm only getting khichdi to eat, and I'm eating the small portions ever so slowly, to make them last longer. And I'm loving it.

After a long time when I did my breathing exercises, I could really let the breath go in deep. Mummy keeps talking about making our breaths reach the stomach - as babies are able to do or Kakaji - and I felt that at least for those few breaths even I could do that.

Next day I was allowed to walk downstairs at 930 am when the sun was up. And it was so gorgeous. I had tears in my eyes just seeing the gentle light getting sprayed on the walking path through the moving filigree of leaves.

And there was a new bed, all the flowers showing off with their faces turned to the sun - petunias, marigolds, celosia, poinsettias. And then there was this little fellow hitting an immaculate cover drive.

Blessings come to us in such ordinary ways.

And there's something about being indisposed which sharpens both our senses and realisations. I just wanted to thank everything for their benediction of existence.

I felt good so I came down again for a walk in the evening. The air had a bite in it, and I was glad for my heavy pullover and the hoodie I could pull tightly around my head.

I met Tanu and Darshi as they returned from the marketplace. Darshi carried a fresh paper bag - it promised cookies or pastries.

It had been a brilliant day. The promise of it getting better just got confirmed.

The Uncuts

Discussion about this post