July 14, 2021: I could smell the flowers today

July 14, 2021: I could smell the flowers today. The warm humid air blew through the bedroom. Somewhere nearby there must have been a bloom of rajanigandha (Tuberose: Polianthes tuberosa L.) and the gentle aroma wafted through the room, as an approaching storm brought promises of a rain in the night. The test people who the Angels had set up came on time. The results came in record time. All good. The challenge has now centered on vaccines. There is a supply issue. Our team has been trying to procure vaccines, but it is increasingly difficult. It appears, from our limited experience, that there is a real paucity of supply. There is a good amount of red tape as well. A bondhu explained the thing to me and how one has to knock on many doors to get access. All I am looking for is to do one camp at the place where we have become embedded to support the people of that community. Everything can be done, the space to do the camp is available, there are people who could administer the vaccine, there is eagerness in our team but there are way too many pushbacks. Way too many hurdles in actually getting the vaccine. One almost wants to give up, but then as we see the Global picture, it is increasingly clear that vaccination is part of the solution. Our lifestyles will be the remainder. Coming from where I was a couple of weeks ago, the simple habit of wearing the mask had disappeared. I sometimes do not even remember to keep a mask with me, but I went out and bought a box of 100, now I have some with me all the time. Mostly everyone is masked around me on this cloudy and the breezy day that brought the rajanigandha to the bedroom. Earlier, I was about to order an app cab to come back home from Beckbagan, was tempted to get something from Mithai, and then thought about taking a tram ride. The trams of my city are legendary. One passed by but was going in a different direction. Decided to take the Ambassador yellow cab – the signature of here. No air conditioning, but as we sped down the Maa flyover I realized that I am here for a purpose. This year something has been driving me to come here. Something beckons. I know what it is. And I am happy that the reason is there. Without that reason, one that is so deeply engraved in my psyche, I would not be here. I long for my basement, the gentle breeze through the pines on a July evening as the deer prance through the lawn and I long for the gulmohor (Delonix regia) in the park, and the heat that only the month of Ashar offers with the promise of the sudden downpour. I was caught in one the day I arrived. It was the record-breaking rain of a couple of weeks ago, but it brought a cleansing and that day I realized what beckons, what comforts me here. Many say that this is an impossible life – shuttling between two Worlds – I say this is the only way for me. There are elements in both places – lives and loves – that gives me the energy to exist. All because of COVID-19. Relationships, places, work, life – a welcome transformation. Life is about dualities – two of everything – one a reflection of the other – in this duality we may prosper when the pandemic is truly behind us – a flipped life. One that offers much more than what just any one place can offer. This is way to think of what The Foreigners might have meant in saying, “Fill my eyes with that double vision, no disguise for that double vision/Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me.” Always new to me, wherever I am.