Corona and the long gap..

It has been quite some time and I have written anything.

The fifth lockdown (or Lockdown 5.0) has been on since 4th of May but my offie has started functioning again and I have been on full-time work since then. Lots of pending works during the earlier four phases of the lockdown took away most of my time and too many deadlines and meetings and webinars and emails and….

Thought I will restart my blogging again. Now we are in a very interesting situation in Puducherry (India) where I live. Before the lockdowns, we had very few cases, and people were extremely scared about the pandemic. Four versions of lockdown, people are fedup with the system and now with the current unlock process, the cases are increasing day by day. Today was the highest increase with 27 new cases registered.

The funny way in which the Indian administration is responding to the pandemic is noteworthy. They have opened all the places of workship – all temples, churches, mosques etc. And people are flooding to these places as this was the ONE thing they have been missing all these days. In most states, the liquur shops also have opened up. The result? Obvious.. the rising Corona cases. And to add to the twist, a border standoff with our neighbours China as well. How politics overtakes all other interests is a thing to watch and learn.

Anyway, this is how the system works. And whether we like it or not, that is how it is. And that’s how it shall be. Unless the people react. But we have forgotten to react or have lost the energies to react in ways where the government will sit up and notice. This pandemic is a chance for those in power (which every country or nation, I think it is the same everywhere) to push their agenda.

Rest later,

Signing off….

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Tropical Cyclone Amphan

It is too hot in Pondicherry (a small state in the southern part of India) and now at 3.00 pm it is 40-42 degrees Celsius or 107 F. Usually the hottest month in Pondicherry is June but the tropical cyclone Amphan that is creating havoc in Eastern part of India and Bangladesh is making us in a hot air oven drawing all the cool air towards it.

Courtesy: Windy.com 

Not only Pondicherry, but most of India is reeling under the heatwave created by the cyclone as is evident from the temperature graph from windy.com. But compared to the impact of the cyclone where it is going to hit, this heatwave is manageable. But to the thousands of migrant labourers who are out on the road due to the COVID pandemic, this is going to be a big challenge!!

Courtesy: windy.com Date: 20/05/2020

Our Sun also in lockdown

While the Earth as a whole is going through the lockdown, our source of energy, the Sun also has gone into a lockdown, says reports. Called as the Solar minimum, the sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system, though could be dangerous for astronauts travelling through space,  nothing much to worry for us.

Image Credit: NASA.

And similar to almost our own global lockdown, the Sun has also gone into lockdown for more than a 100 days – 3 months +- now. Interesting phenomenon for scientists but even for laypersons like us, this is interesting.

It is said that every eleven years, the sunspots fade away, making the Sun a “cool” guy, relatively calm. Alternatively, the Sunspots and solar flares peak and fade with an 11-year cycle and it is the least phase or the “lockdown” phase in a way. But don’t ever think, the Sun actually cools.. No. It will not have any effect on the temperature of our cities or anything like that.

The Corona virus is giving us new perspectives, it is teaching us ..

Enjoy your lockdown, stay safe and pray for the poor and the vulnerable, who are suffering like hell… Unfortunately, much of the declared relief packages has no relevance to those poor people !!!

Courtesy: https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/article/sun-reportedly-entering-solar-minimum-whats-the-phenomenon-and-why-is-it-happening-now/593485

The locked-down Pondicherry beach

The Pondicherry beach part of the White town of the erstwhile French colony known for its metropolis outlook of people of all countries, colour and gender throng for its beauty and the serenity is locked-down due to the pandemic.

Instead of the busy walkers and joggers that usually fill up the promenade, now you can see only lazy dogs enjoying the beach and its cool winds.

The sea is also cool and relatively calm known for its rather harsh waves.

The sky is also reciprocating the mood of the sea as well as the beach with its myriad of moods or colours with beautiful patterns of clouds allowing you to write your own interpretations of visual poetry.

12th May 2020

Pandemics…history repeating?

The current pandemic is something very new for all of us. But a little digging into the history and too if one goes back to about 100 years, we can see exactly that history is just repeating. The flu of 1918  caused by the H1N1 flu virus had one of the worst death rates in the world. And it lasted for about two or three years, spreading all over the world. Just after the world war I, the disease spread by returning soldiers getting back to their countries. Though it might not have much to Spain and may it is interesting to see why it was called so.

Anyhow, in India, it was called the Bombay fever which spread to Chennai, Kolkatta, and other major cities (though the modern concept of a city was not there). It is supposed to have a couple of millions people in India alone and all over the world, it would have killed many millions, some estimates put it at 50 million. As the communication systems and reporting systems were not up to the mark considering this happened about 100 years ago, nobody might even know actually how many people would have died the world over. Still the available news says the world population would have got decimated by a very high percentage of about 6-10% . This flu killed more people than the World war 1 itself points to the fact as to how lethal it was.

Interestingly the Father of India, Mahatma Gandhi also got infected by the flu but survived the same. Also, it is to be noted that the 1918 flu had similar symptoms as of the current Corona virus. The old photographs available astonishingly reflects what we see now around us! But the flu of 1918 is very different from the current pandemic in the way it affects different age groups as the current pandemic is more dangerous to elderly while as the 1918 flu was more lethal for young populations.

So history is just repeating. Do we learn our lessons enough at least for the future?

Better we do !!!

Your lockdown life

The lockdown has changed us, the way we look at things, objects, other life forms, value of things that we can not buy with money. It has brought in new paradigms, new thought-processes, new attitudes.

Now we look at metal and other surfaces like doorknobs, bolts, hand-rails, etc. especially out of the home with suspect. We are getting accustomed to face-maks and sanitizer. Our window to the outside world has also changed a bit.

We have found new things to do, reinvented many of our lost interests. To some, it might be gardening, or to somebody else, it would be cooking or even watching good movies or listening to music. In another way, is it that nature is asking us to re-invent ourselves and the way we look at the planet and other fellow species?

Hopefully so!!!

Budh Poornima/Chitra Pournima

Today is Budh Poornima which is Buddha’s birthday. It is a Buddhist festival that is celebrated in most of East Asia commemorating the birth of the Prince Siddhartha Gautama, later the Gautama Buddha, and was the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition and modern academic consensus, Gautama Buddha was born c. 563–480 BCE in Lumbini (currently located in Nepal), and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu (courtesy: Wikipedia).

In Tamil culture, the same day is called the Chitra Pournami which is the full moon day of the Tamil month of Chithirai which is again today, the 7th of May 2020.

Today is full moon day and today’s moon looks so fabulous.

Salutes to those who feed us

One of the good things that happened after the second lockdown was that the government allowed agricultural activities to resume.  This meant not only that farmers could resume their operations but also the agricultural labourers could work and earn some money and thus buy food for their houses!..  The daily agricultural labourers have to work every day to earn their food and the 40 days long lockdown was a disaster. Maybe more lives would have lost due to the loss of livelihoods than due to the COVID pandemic itself all over the world.

Salutes to them, who toil irrespective of rain or sun, flood or drought, pandemic or not, because, without them, we have no food to eat…

Cassia fistula or Golden showers

This is Cassia fistula or commonly called as golden showers. Known as Kani Konna in Malayalam it is the State flower of Kerala State, India. It is used in preparing the Kani– on the Vishu festival which is the first day of the Malayalam year which usually falls on April 14. It is auspicious to see the Vishu Kani which will keep the year ahead as a prosperous one.   Cassia tree has a lot of medicinal properties and is called aragvadha, meaning “disease killer” in Ayurveda, the age-old Indian system of Medicine. 

Yesterday while driving back from office to home, I could see many Cassia trees fully bloom with their golden flowers hanging down so adorably.

Moon – 3 May 2020

It was a bit difficult to shoot with the maximum zoom of 1200 mm without a tripod… But at the end with multiple trials, got these images… Astonishing to me, the images turned out to be very sharp and with interesting details of the elevations and valleys on the moon’s visible surface…

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