My dear Jhia,
2020.
A year in which way too many things happened and at the same time, nothing much happened either.
I have been thinking if it can be called bittersweet. Maybe it can maybe it is more bitter than sweet, but that is a different debate.
We celebrated your 5th birthday in that club house of Orchid Lake View, Bangalore. Your nanu could attend despite his failing health and we had a few people coming over and it turned out to be a good evening. You were ecstatic with the Elsa themed cake and all the balloon decoration.
I had to again in a few days time go to Bangalore and got nanu admitted to hospital on 22nd January. We all had to go then in the beginning of February. While we adults knew the inevitable was around, everyone at home was worried about you, that how would you take it. I was deeply concerned.
Your nanu "became a star" on 19th of February and you surprised us all with taking the whole thing so well. You understood everything; you were much more mature for your age and you could process what was happening and what we told you.
We returned to Manipal on 3rd March and in a few days time things would go horribly wrong with the world. The World Health Organization (WHO), on 11th March declared the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. Such an event hadn't occurred in a 100 years. Soon after the Indian government announced one of the strictest lockdowns starting March 24. There was fear all around, the Covid-19 cases were rising steadily. While children were not getting affected by the virus, there was little known back then and everyone (at least us) was on tenterhooks.
Lockdown was upon us and we were confined to our home. It was nice to be around with you all the time. We tried new dishes at home, gradually we went out for a walk in the evenings, we played at home, learnt new things and yes, we gobbled up books.
Your love for books continued this year. We re-read the whole ACK 3-part Mahabharata; we got new Julia Donaldson books, we graduated to Ruskin Bond, Sudha Murthy, etc. Be it while eating, bedtime, reading stories to you have been one major job that I have been, and when not feeding you (which you refuse to do with rice-dal in afternoons) your mother have been doing. Not happy with books you also have been listening to on-the-spot-made-up stories.
One of the books you got as a gift on your 5th, 100 Rebel Girl Stories, your mother with her innovative skills dressed you up as Cleopatra one time, Ruth Vader Ginsberg another time, and other famous personalities, photographic proof of all of which exists.
While we are lucky to have these comforts, there were millions of underprivileged people who walked thousands of kilometers to their homes after everything shut down due to lockdowns. It was a painful sight. I tried sending money to a few people hoping it would help them. The pandemic has brought India's economy to a very dangerous place. While it will be some time before you understand these, but I for one am concerned about you in 2020, for the promise that India holds for its citizens, for little girls like you wrests in its economic development which because of a poor economic show might get delayed and so will get delayed the opportunities for young children like you. The ugly social divisions that are surfacing are also cause of concern for little ones like you should not grow in such toxic environments. But the hope also wrests with a little more older to you generation, who should take India to a place where there is peace and prosperity.
World over the pandemic wreaked havoc with medical systems in high income, developed countries like the USA, being unable to cope, all of it leading to lot of people dying. By the time I write this letter to you, amazing scientific development has given humankind the vaccine against coronavirus in record time and millions of people have been vaccinated already in Western countries. In a few months time, we too should be getting it.
Anyway, you got familiar with all these pandemic terms pretty soon. You amazed us with perfecting the hand washing technique and have been doing it diligently after coming back home when we go out. You in fact had a bout of fever mid-year which worried us to no end, but it was fine.
Your school has been operating on WhatsApp and you did very well at the short speeches, etc, that were assigned to you. So much so that on Water Conservation Day you were requested to give a short speech which you did really well. Your singing sojourn continues, and especially with old Hindi songs. And guess what, you have been making these 'self songs', lyrics of which are pretty situational and apt. This one time, you sang that Kannada song fully, which you had picked up without our knowledge, and it blew our mind.
You took to watching Ninja Hattori in the first half of the year and Paw Patrol, Peppa, Masha in towards the end of the year. There have been some silver lining amidst the grey clouds of 2020, in the form of your Papa acquiring his PhD degree on 23rd November and your mother registering for it three days prior to that date. I don't know if you will ever have the interest to open my thesis book, but know that the acknowledgement section begins with me telling you the lines that Prospero said to his daughter Miranda in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
The lines are: Oh, a cherubim, Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.. (Act 1, Scene2)
In this year, largely since we did not go out much; we only went to one or two colleagues house that too in December when cases in Udupi were pretty low, we went quite a few times to the beach, which you enjoy a lot. We haven't been to the mountains with you yet, so as of now you seem to be a beach girl.
I cannot but feel astonished at your resilience at the face of all that happened in 2020. For a kid of your age it is essential and imperative to go out, to mingle with friends, to socialize at school and none of which happened. But you adjusted well to everything.
2020 has been a difficult year with a few silver linings. When and if you read this, and with the advantage of hindsight you will realize what a landmark year it was.
I love you the mostest!
Papa
