October is here!!

By Angela Seneviratne

Come on now, all together,Let’s spark up October and make it better than September. – said someone unknown. Here I am, again, in the still of a Friday night, on the very first day of the tenth month of another long dreary, unexciting year, which was a larger part of  more than eighteen months of lock down, lock up, shut in, shut off, and mostly shut up back in my comfy sofa chair, armed with a cuppa, and a “biskit” deliberating on what has been, that will evolve into will be.

 Has anyone seen a Milkman in the recent past?? I have not, but I have memories of them from decades ago, when they would deliver pre ordered bottles to one's doorsteps. Choon Paan man replaced the Perera and Sons Carts and the Royal Bakery Carts that arrived at a precise hour every day, with barely half the variety we were accustomed to in our childhood

I like that they use the word curfew, which in my realization was last implemented in fact, and force many years ago. Certainly not in this period. They speak of lifting curfew but restricting movement, opening the country but shutting borders, normalcy to return but under strict rules. 

I am sorry to confess  that my compartments of grey matter are now at a full fledged war with one another in violent argument that all is not well, and I need urgent therapy. Either my ability to understand is now depilated to the bare minimum, or my grasp of the language has vanished, and, or I am now stark raving mad. Covid has got my senses, my brain and my common sense.

Now tell me first, was the country ever closed?  Not where I live, and certainly not in the city.

In fact, even the traffic police were on duty!! Every mode of transport except for trains and buses was on the road. So, pray tell me…. What are they talking of?

Our airport has been functioning with  cargo planes to distant lands and returnees who sold their souls to purchase tickets at exorbitant prices just with the one intent of getting home. I was personally very nervous about all airline staff as my own fledgling served a Middle Eastern Airline, and there was a time they were clad in PPE suits throughout their flights, which would have been an eerie sight. Imagine passengers masked and flight crew in PPE suits!! When airlines grounded their flights, and some took ruthless decisions to lay off their staff, families that survived on them, had no alternative to turn to, that was when I really ranted at the invisible virus. With the“Work from home" era, I sometimes wondered if the Pilot made his address to the passengers “Good morning, this is your Captain speaking. I am working from home today."

But now, at the end of eighteen months, running into the nineteenth, we have learned to live... live without fresh fish for a while, milk powder, sometimes gas, without flour at times, or tinned fish, without sugar, and now garlic..

Those passengers coming in to the island chose between a two week stay at a hotel quarantine facility or a state facility, the former at a price of course. Then on the flip side, if one was unfortunate enough to be afflicted with the virus, one could choose to be in a hotel covid facility at a price , booked through a private hospital, or at a state run facility, so I guess in this whole circus, some made a quick buck. 

But now, at the end of eighteen months, running into the nineteenth, we have learned to live... live without fresh fish for a while, milk powder, sometimes gas, without flour at times, or tinned fish, without sugar, and now garlic, without some varieties of rice, and other essential and without cooking oil at some stores.

 
Yes, we lived. No-one died of the lack of these things. We are a resilient people. Way back in March last year, everyone wanted to grow some vegetable even in their balconies and on their roofs with wide publicity on social media.  Like all trends, that too has died down now, and I see a heavy exhibition of people’s culinary skills. Now wait a minute….. how did they manage cooking without all the essentials?? I will never understand that one.
Back in at the beginning of this war with the virus, enterprising business sprung up in delivery of vegetables and groceries. In the area that I live, little vans would ply regularly selling anything that housewives would require Strangely I have not seen very many of those in the last four months. So, I guess online businesses prospered in the meanwhile. That is sad. The small business man was hit the most. Has anyone seen a Milkman in the recent past?? I have not, but I have memories of them from decades ago, when they would deliver pre ordered bottles to one's doorsteps. Choon Paan man replaced the Perera and Sons Carts and the Royal Bakery Carts that arrived at a precise hour every day, with barely half the variety we were accustomed to in our childhood, and more inferior in quality I must add.

 I can waffle on with my lovely memories of yesterdays that we grew up in, where we had very little, compared to what is available now, and triumphantly say, we survived that too.

Therefore, we can get through this… lets spark off October and make it better than September.

Cherry bye for now. Stay safe. ..don’t let your guard down. Remember the important letters MDWS-Mask Distance Wash Sanitize. everywhere you go. Until the Pre-Christmas month of November.....