Covid Diary

Life under Covid is surreal, yes! But strange and awesome things also happen - you just have to look out for them!

Charging Ducks!

For instance, I got chased by a flock of ducks when I recently walked in the Washington Mall at the Lincoln Memorial. I unthinkingly threw a piece of my Kind bar to a duckling in the pond - then the others charged! It was a bit scary to be fleeing in broad daylight from greedy ducks - yes, geese are more aggressive - but it kind of made my week! 

Birthday Treats!

I had to drive to Ram’s place to pick up Costco provisions, so Bhuvana made me cheese dosas (as a birthday treat, upon request!) with milagai podi (a spicy powder made with lentils and red chillies and eaten with South Indian food, such as idlis and dosas) - so yum! 

The girls are good. Sham is still mulling over transferring to an instate school. I had to bully the younger one, Harini, into letting me edit her essay on the novel, “Purple Hibiscus.” The things one does for a little intellectual stimulation! I still haven’t forgiven Sham’s teacher for not returning the essay on “Women in Homer” after spending so many hours making it perfect!  

India Gate

Thanks to Covid, I’m exploring my neighborhood and recently discovered a restaurant, India Gate, owned by Mr. Rehman from Bangladesh. He usually makes me a takeaway order of tadka daal, chawal, bhindi and baingan barta (for the uninitiated, that’s lentils, rice, okra and puréed eggplant)! Hands down, the mussalmaans make the best tadka daal!  

The restaurant is empty but we have our masks on and socially distance while chatting about Dhaka which I remember well from visits for the European Union. He’s actually from Tangail in Mymensingh District and does a “first class” (such a desi term!) masala chai (no sugar, just a hint of nutmeg, mostly cardamom)!  

Streaming During Lockdown! 

If you haven’t tried streaming before, this is the time! You can use any platform: Roku, Apple TV, Xfinity, your PC, but you still need to subscribe individually to providers of content, such as, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Sundance, Acorn, Britbox, Masterpiece Theatre, FX, CBS, etc.  

I can recommend “The Bureau” - an addictive, captivating series with smarts and style. I have never seen a spy show this real and can only think of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” which matches its complexity.  “The Bureau” is about the inner workings of French Intelligence, extremely well acted with very authentic spy technology. The pace starts slow and builds intensity in ways that make you want to watch all four seasons in one sitting (which I nearly did)!  Check it out on Sundance,  available on Prime Video. 

Another prestige mini series I really liked is “The Plot Against America” on HBO based on a Philip Roth novel that imagines a populist demagogue whipping the U.S. into a fascist dystopia. The show picks up in June 1940, diverging from the historical record with the political ascendancy and presidential election of aviator and war hero Charles Lindbergh, notorious for his anti-Semitism and anti-interventionist stance toward Nazism. The show is a chilling illustration of how easily xenophobia flourishes, complete with internment camps for dissidents and paramilitary goon squads. The parallels between the alternative history of this show and the real events of present day Trump America are mind boggling.

Roots Showing!  

I had to cancel all my regular activities: visits to restaurants, movies, the hairdressers, mani-pedis, and so on!  The bonus is that one is saving money - which I’m now forced to spend on Amazon and Wholefood deliveries! Bummer! But I also scored some paper towels (kitchen rolls), TP, and face tissues, a huge achievement!  In March-April, all paper products had vanished from store shelves; now they’re making a comeback!  

But the hairdresser is what I miss most! I think it was Kishore Singh writing in Business Standard who said that, when he met his friends, he couldn’t help noticing (despite the mandatory physical distancing) that the wife’s (hair) roots were showing and that she looked like a black and white beaver or was it a raccoon! That’s how I feel! Although not enough to do something about it, so far at least!

Clean Air!

One of the few benefits of people staying indoors is that the public parks and trails are empty!  I’ve been walking in Rock Creek Park and along the Potomac below the Kennedy Center. You see a few joggers, people walking their dogs, the odd homeless person, but very little traffic. It’s not the huge contrast that you have in India where the pollution suddenly lifted and you can see the Himalayas (Mt. Dhaulagiri and Nandadevi), or even whales popping out of the Arabian Sea near Bombay! Washington, D.C., in contrast, is a comparatively clean city with multiple parks - but now you can actually breathe in huge lungfuls of squeaky clean air!   

What’s App Chats!

Our weekly Joseph family What’s App chats have been working quite well after a few hiccups: Mum kept “rejecting” instead of “accepting” the calls at first! Lorna likes to multitask so all we see is one eye and three or four teeth, like a Picasso painting! We’re planning to transition to Zoom, a more updated technology so that other family members (Kathy, Lori, Mati) can join. 

Community Connections 

I also think of how lucky many of us are to get that paycheck or pension or social security check, or brokerage dividends - or any other kind of regular income - when so many thousands are dying, hurting, and going hungry. Feeling useless and inadequate is an unfortunate byproduct of this crisis but we can channel that; we can all do something, like donating to a relief organization or neighborhood food bank or simply writing a check! 

I’m so glad that, through the World Bank’s Community Connections campaign, one can contribute both globally (to UNICEF, the Red Cross, Médecins sans Frontières, etc.) as well as locally to food banks. Most importantly, the World Bank matches one’s contribution, thereby doubling it. 

When this whole thing started, I was glued to the news - but wall-to-wall 24 hour coverage can be repetitive and depressing. One needs to be informed but there are limits to how much relentlessly negative information one can imbibe! Take a break! Go for a walk! Stretch! Jump in place! Unglue yourself from that bloomin’ sofa! Until next time then! On se parle bientôt!

Ludi Joseph
Washington, D.C.
May 10, 2020

Lincoln Memorial, April 2020

Washington Monument, April 2020

Happier times: my cousin Lianne, Mum, Lorna, Mati, Moi; Miami, April 2018

Happier times: Mum, Leslie, Kathy; NY, April 2018

Happier times: Sham & Hari at Graduation, June 2019

Bhuvana’s Tulips, Arlington, VA, May 2020

Masked Gang: Me with Bonnie & Clyde (Bhuv & Ram), April 2020

Solo Birthday Celeb! Chez Moi! May 2020

Oil painting, India Gate restaurant, May 2020