BENGALURU : If my grandmother was alive today, she would have repeated that over-indulgence in anything is bad. Perhaps grandmothers across the world are saying the same thing now, every day. And unlike my grandma, they would have proof to show that the party was indeed getting a bit wilder. Food was becoming faster. Surroundings were getting messier. Each of us was turning into a hoarder. Little realising that Cinderella hour would strike. And this time, it would be far more than the glass slipper we will lose. Or maybe, life as we knew it was the glass slipper.
As the year draws to a close, most of us are, in some way or the other, quietly, or not, waiting for the prince. Realising well that our kids are losing faith in fairy tales. Will fairy tales be redrawn now? Will Snow White wear a mask? Or will our life look like a fairy tale when we are finally able to abandon ours?
Ah, I can hear the cynics now. Or the cynical grandmothers. Life is never a fairy tale, they say. It’s dystopian now, I say. Dystopian fairy tale, we agree. We look around. Store shelves that were once overstacked are lying barren, like office cubicles after work hours. Or, just as office cubicles, work hours or not, as the current situation goes.
We were perhaps getting too proud of our malls, restaurants, hotels, airports, and airports that contain the other three. We were for sure, no ‘perhaps’ there, putting too much stress on the schooling of children. And too little on eating healthy, buying less, saving more.
We got to learn the lessons the hard way. A country notorious for its bandh calls finally got the experience of what the term brings with it. We used terms like ‘reset’ and ‘defrost’ for abandoned plans and melted ambitions. We missed the sight of crowded tea stalls and swarming-with-flies street food. Neighbours got detached, distant cousins across continents grew closer. We grew comfortable with using complex scientific words. We learnt afresh how to decipher graphs. We then waited for curves to flatten. We rhymed corona with ‘jao na’. We lived from day to day. We prayed for the year to end. We clung to hope.
The year comes to an end. We cling to hope.
A not-so starry affair
Many movies were slotted for the year but fans will now have to wait longer for the films that were pushed due to the outbreak
Roberrt starring Darshan, which was to be out on April 9
Yash’s KGF Chapter 2, which was due to be out on Oct 23
Sudeep’s Kotigobba 3
Puneeth Rajkumar’s Yuvarathnaa
Shivarajkumar’s Bhajarangi 2
Rakshit Shetty’s 777 Charlie
Dhruva Sarja’s Pogaru
Ganesh starrer Gaalipata 2