with bated breath!

Covid 19 has made breathing a breath-taking effort. Inhale n exhale, clean fogged up glasses, look around, again inhale, exhale, clean your glasses… this goes on, on the loop… or; you can always look at the world in a mist 😂!

Actually, its not all that bad other than -when driving… The world turns too romantic with you behind the mask; no time to notice the hard steel bodies of vehicles n scowls of the adjacent driver. Everyday, before leaving home , I brush my hair, apply kohl to the windows to the world(👀) , console my lipsticks in the vanity and then mask up to the new “normal”, hypoxic breath, misted view and all…

Everyday, the television shows red… graphs of Covid spread, Covid deaths, lack of hospital beds, shortage of ventilators, petrol prices, Nifty, Sensex and whatever can go in the red has turned Red for us. Even the news channels I watch frequently are stylishly brandished a roaring Red. Of late, a red flag with visible yellow stars and an invisible dragon has also started appearing on a regular basis on the screen.

China… Knocking hither thither, sneaking in, slithering down a glacial valley, hissing around a pristine lake… n yet again I am unable to take an easy breath! When the hypochondriac in me settles down somehow, the latent soldier starts spitting fury!

O China and O Chinese Virus, can we expect to breathe easy sometime in the near future?

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