photopost and a recommendation

sometimes the sky even in delhi is Blue.

these are from my terrace that I'm going upto a lil bit more this winter. Peepul keeps taking root along the water pipes. 

Today was esp beautiful, cold breeze blue sky and strong sun, just like I like December to be. 

birds were playing with the wind, floating weightless.

Oh and yeah, do watch My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. and then look up Craig Foster's other works.

a strange encounter

i had gone to le marche in vasant vihar (a supermarket where the clientele is often the embassy crowd of expats and their friends) the other day. just wanted to pick up 2-3 things while i waited for my fried chicken at the korean place nearby. many of these supermarkets these years have more aisle-help than one needs, and they make themselves obvious, "Ma'am do you need any help" or some such. there was this young girl who asked me that and because I couldn't find where the garbage bags were I did ask her. now I know the sizes of the bins at home in inches, or actually the sizes of the bags i usually buy. but this place had all garbage bags sized up in cms. i couldnt remember the conversion from cms to inches. and i wasn't carrying my phone cos i often leave it at home now to save up on sanitizing it after public exposure. so i asked the young girl if she could please tell me how many cms were an inch. i think i said it in hindi cos i do know a lot of the help around are not fluent in english. she asked me in turn what the size of my bin was. i do get annoyed when ppl answer a request or a question with another one, so i was already beginning to lose my patience but i told her that i knew the size in inches but not in cms so could she please translate for me as i wasn't carrying my phone on me. she said she didnt know. i asked her if she had her phone as i wasn't carrying mine; she took one out of her pocket; i told her she could look it up on her phone. she opened her calculator app and said she couldnt see how. i suggested gently that she should open up a browser and search on google. i had to somehow say it more than once explaining that a lil bit. the trusted google blank page came alight, and she didn't know what to do after that. i was trying not to show my surprise/shock on my face, and i just tried to lead her to clicking on the search bar and asked her to type "inch to cms". she even missed the lil virtual keypad that appeared and didn't seem to know what to do with it. because of covid and keeping my hands off her phone i simply tried to point out to the keypad and asked her to click on i-n-ch . she got the i, but no more beyond. even after 3-4 attempts. i realised not only did she not know that she carried a trove of information in her pocket and did not know how to access it, she was also unaware of the english alphabet. what surprised me then that she wasn't using the phone in hindi. i kept my mouth shut though and simply gave up at that point. i just picked up a medium sized pack of bags and told her it was fine, and thanked her. i came home and told hubby, told my mom and sis the day after, and have been thinking about it since. all those statistics that count and estimate the spread of smartphones and internet access in developing countries and use them to imply how these devices empower people's lives, etc. etc. and this was not an old person who had missed the internet revolution and could never seem to catch up with it. this was a girl of probably 18-20 years of age, belonging to a generation of people who use smart devices like physical appendages to their bodies. yes, i understand she probably didn't know english, she probably didn't have much education, that it was probably a new phone too that she had just been able to afford. but it was right in her pocket, it was a not-cheap smartphone, right in her pocket, and she worked in a store where she would probably see and hear and learn a lot about how things and people commmunicate. i was stunned. i still am despite the fact that i sort of know that india is a country where paradoxes are abundant and where dichotomies often do overlap. i was stunned at what i saw and understood to be the relationship between the young girl and her phone, probably that of dialing numbers and calling and receiving calls in turn, and maybe adding/subtracting amounts of money on the calculator. i was stunned at me being stunned. i mean this is my country and what do i know about it. what do i know about its people, my people? i could have been that girl, if i was born in different circumstances; could i really? there was a time when i remember marveling at someone's typing speed in college (Masters years!) when all i could do was use my two pointer fingers to click on one letter after another much much more slowly (now i do use multiple fingers to type much faster or i wouldn't be writing all this down). maybe that strange encounter will help her question what her phone is capable of, maybe she will sit down with it after dinner that day or with some friend and ask/explore how she can interact with it. maybe next time i won't be so surprised, and maybe i will actually try to teach her something. and maybe i've actually learned something from it already.

I bought my first pair of running shoes (nike air) in 2006, after a few days of running in my converse sneakers because I didn't want to splurge on expensive shoes if I wasn't going to like running. in about 2013-14 running started to hurt. my left knee would click every now and then and going down stairs was especially difficult. i ran funny somedays then, swinging my feet out to the sides, cos it seemed to help, slightly. round about then I also fell one morning on my run; scraped my knee (I forget which one) and my left hand between the fingers and the wrist on the non-palm side. I still have butterfly shaped mark from that bruise on my hand that now looks like a birthmark. I remember I also tore my leggings that day on the fall. I stopped running as often, especially after my knee aches and then after someone suggested my shoes might need a change I think I stopped running altogether. there was new found yoga then. sometime after I moved to Fort Worth in 2015 and found myself by the river (Trinity) I wanted to run out in the mornings again. I remember some running discomfort again. and then I bought some cheapish Asics on sale, online, not sure changing shoes was the answer. the pair turned out to be so snug I couldn't fit socks in it and I think they were beyond returning giving having been bought on sale or some such. I started running in them without socks and felt like my free-er toes simulated barefeet running. my knee felt fine again just like that. although without socks my shoes got a lot more stinky and dirty on the insole. I had them till a month ago. this monsoon I started running outdoors again. then maybe in October I twisted something just above my right ankle. felt like I had hurt my achilles tendon. rest for a week, but it was sore even after hurting when I ran. then it kinda went away. and then one day I just fell headlong. probably got my shoe on a stone protruding from the park path (there are many all over). probably distracted by the cricket croud laughing (at me? there are often comments directed at me in a park where I am the only running girl). and I suddenly found myself hurtling toward the sand colored earth ahead of my with my hands outstretched to embrace it or push it away. I scraped my left knee and my left elbow. a few old uncles asked me if i was ok and told me about some woman who had just the day before suddenly fainted in the park. i said i was fine, i brushed the dust off, the elbow just looked like some dry blades of grass and the rough earth had scratched it, and my knee clothed in my grey leggings felt strong. so i started running again, finished the lap and a half that was still due. my knee was singe-ing by now and by the time i got into my car I saw that the leggings were staining with some blood although not enough to emerge through the fabric on the outside. got home washed it, was a bloody patch for about 3-4 days and i couldnt bear fabric on it so i wore shorts although it was getting coldish. new skin has covered it now. i always find the melanin spots so symmetrically arranged in any patch of new skin (golden ratio?) pretty cool. also the bruise colors. i didn't run for a few days again. next time i ventured out i was very careful looking at the ground and watching my steps. then in my final lap i felt this guy's eyes on me, sideways, right next to me. I looked reflexively. and then I fell again. he turned back to see me on the ground, didn't offer to help thankfully. i cursed myself. but thought i wasn't hurt this time. and then I saw the palm of my right hand; blood oozing out. probably my car key had scratched me; I usually have it in that palm while I run. the key itself had flown off to the side. I grabbed it, wiped it on my legginged leg, this time didn't try to finish my lap and drove home if only to wash the earth off the bleeding palm. for a day or two I obsessed over a bit of skin around the piercing that looked muddy and I couldn't seem to reach within it to get the brown out. inspired by all the reading about microbes and diseases I thought a bit about tetanus bacteria spores. but it healed beautifully, no bruises or scars, just a slightly darker spot left in the pink palm. by the way i once read (or heard) that we don't quite know why our bodies leave scars. its not like a scar is necessary in the skin's process of closing up, sealing in, and healing the wound. its probably a reminder to our past accidents, mishaps, foolishnesses, pain, etc. etc. dunno if that makes sense but to me it seemed cool then, like our body communicating to our minds, across time and place. anyway, two falls in two runs in a row. i initially attributed it to change of running speed cos i had then started running with a mask as October is PM2.5 month. maybe running slower upset my balance somehow. maybe. but then, anyway, i also blamed my shoes. each time its time to change shoes something like this happens, multiple lil incidents and injuries. so i bought the third pair of running shoes in my life. online again. asics again. but not pronated ones this time (i am slightly flat footed). ive been running like a charm since then. and these are half a size larger than the last ones, so socks fit in too. don't seem to ruin the barefooted feeling too much, I still splay my toes (within my socks) before they hit the ground each time. running is quite a natural muscle memory art. the other day two guys commented (talking to each other) that I had started coming to the park very late these days. i wanted to tell them: its hard getting out of my blanket as it gets colder. a couple days some men commented on my shorts being too small, and my tshirt being too big almost covering my shorts. this where even in hot summer other women walk in skin tight leggings. and today some middle aged uncles (maybe younger) weren't quite as appreciative in the right way when they commented on how active to them I looked. I've heard other women complain that delhi isn't a city for early morning runs alone for a girl. i've run alone at 6-ish mornings since 2007 on and off. somehow these men never bother me enough. 2 years ago I used to go out with my pepper spray, now I don't even bother with that given the pandemic has got the park so busy with ppl channeling their energy into new healthy habits.