Micro story 79
It was just the day before Janata Curfew. My wife and I went to the nearby grocery shop to get whatever little for the next few days. While I was in the vegetable section I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt on which was written, “we go all around the map” with a picture of the world map on his T-Shirt. Nice T-shirt for the wrong time! Inside I was laughing at how people will be interpreting this message. My wife was getting accustomed to the mask and she coughed inside the shop and that T-shirt person who was standing a little far away turned around and disappeared! We are all measured by our face mask value these days. We are at a time when having a mask increases our face value!
Micro story 80
March 22nd, 5 PM, as a nation we decided to salute those healthcare individuals who were putting their life in trouble and trying their best to save people’s lives. The call of the hour was to break the chain. We showed our solidarity through claps and music. My 8-year-old daughter saw through the balcony the sound of the conch. She was very excited and she wanted to meet her friend who was blowing the conch. I had to sit her down and move the conversation away to how the entire nation is playing tunes in different ways and you should also see what is happening across different parts of the country. She finally got convinced as we showed her all those hardworking samaritans that Janata Care-4-you. After that, she started asking daily something or the other question regarding COVID and its impact.
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I never knew our sofa was so nice, I never knew that our balcony was so wide and I never knew that our dishwasher had so much space. When you are at home and after work, I figured out that we have a lot of time to check things and figure out what you have not figured out so far in Life. I liked yesterday when somebody said on TV how they are managing the lockdown period and his response was that ” The moment people get engaged people started finding themselves interesting”.
As Fran Drescher said, ” Look at the mundane with wide-eyed wonder.”
Micro story 82
That day I decided to go down to the store and we were observing social distancing. I saw these 4 gentlemen and lady unloading the vegetables and groceries from the small truck. It crossed my mind how vulnerable they are in terms of exposing themselves to the pandemic. We did observe Janata curfew a few days back but when you see people making those sacrifices in front of your eyes, it triggers a sense of compassion.
Our apartment has a small Nandini outlet which sells vegetables and a few essentials. It is run by a couple and during this time their service has been invaluable. One of the ladies in our apartment baked a cake for them as a gesture of appreciation. When my wife showed me (on WhatsApp) a picture of the lady and husband with the cake, baked for honouring their valiant efforts, it was a RICH moment. I appreciate that family which baked that cake and our apartment community which showed that sense of solidarity.
Micro story 83
I wanted to thank all the leaders from my profession last Sunday as I was completing 25 years in my profession. So I put down all the list of managers I have worked with directly and indirectly and it came down to 30 people. I decided to message them on Linked-In. The whole process of identifying what l learned from them in those 2 hours was very engaging as I decided to personalize those messages with one of two things I picked from them during my stint with them. I got instant messages from many of those leaders and it was enriching. I learned that if you want to put out a thank you note it is important to personalize that note.
Microstory 84
My younger daughter came to my room yesterday and was complaining looking at her tab, I have only block! Broad-band is not that broad any more. With my daughters hogging the bandwidth by watching Netflix and Hotstar, wife hooking on to the internet with YouTube for her daily list of studies and cooking and my Skype and MS teams meeting we can imagine what will happen. So when I have an important meeting I have to negotiate with everyone to release some band width. Today I was thinking of times in our teenage when for the first time the state government introduced load shedding. It was a time when initially candles will be lit and we as an extended family with grandfather, grandmothers will sit in the drawing-room and we will have a chat. A couple of days back we faced a similar situation, there was a power outage and our inverter finally gave up. We all gathered in the central room and there was one light connection from the generator which flashed and as a family, we gathered together and we chatted for a good time.
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