BENGALURU: August is here. The month of breezy showers. The beginning of the festival season. The best time to savour hot oily snacks. The inspiration for numerous Sawan-centric songs, many of them joyous, others pangful, including my favourite, Ab ke baras bhej, from Bimal Roy’s Bandini. 
This August, however, there’s far more than Asha Bhonsle’s wavering voice in the longful melody that’s welling up my eyes. Newspapers are filled with reports of people breathing their last, waiting for hospital admission. Social media feed keeps throwing up first-person accounts of losing a loved one to coronavirus… a 12-year-old boy, a 20-something doctor... 

This August is different. It’s unrecognisable. 
All through my schooling, August was the month I looked forward to the most during the academic year. It brought in the maximum holidays, packed with celebrations like Raksha Bandhan, Krishna Janmashtami, Bakrid, Independence Day and Ganesh Chaturthi. These holidays seemed more precious than the longer vacations, because they interrupted the schooldays and the humdrum with festivities and special delicacies made for each occasion. More interruptions were caused by sudden rainy day holidays, which brought immense delight, even though the day was spent indoors, watching earthworms through the window while watching out for the nasty blanket worm on the windowsill. 

The joys mellowed as years went by. And yet, a faint trace of it remained somewhere deep within, if only due to the realisation that yet another new year is closer around the corner. The festivals, of course, continued to spell indulgence all through the month, with seasonal sweets like the lacy ghewar in north India, and the coconut-filled oozing-with-jaggery modak being worth the year-long wait here. 

Not this August though, when each trip to the market, and each morsel of restaurant food evokes fearful reactions from the family and friends. It hardly even seems like festival time. This past Friday, I had almost forgotten that it was the day for Varamahalakshmi pooja. Even though it’s not observed in the region I come from, I have passively been a part of the celebrations since I moved to Bengaluru, watching the crowds at sari shops, and the smiles on women’s faces, get bigger as the day approached. The housemaids always asked for leave.

This time, however, it dawned on me only when I entered the kitchen that morning, and saw the two maids dressed in spangly saris, the fragrance of the flowers tucked in their hair mingling with the aroma of the masala being fried. Neither of them had asked for the day off. There aren’t many people employing them these days, and they perhaps didn’t want to risk asking for leave at the few jobs they still hold. 

Raksha Bandhan was different too, with WhatsApp messages urging siblings not to visit each other’s houses, and even asking sisters to refrain from stepping out to buy or post rakhis. Next week, the usual Janmashtami fervour will be low-key at ISKCON temple in the city, and devotees may have to participate in the celebrations online. And with nary an idol maker in sight by the side of footpaths, Ganesh Chaturthi will likely turn out to be a lonely celebration too. The biggest loss is perhaps being felt by some schoolkid who looked forward to August the way I did. Holidays are just not the same when you don’t go to school.