JOIN USThose were the initial days of the lockdown, each and every street in our locality on the suburb of the metro wore a barren look. Streets remained brightly lit by brilliant sodium lamps and floodlights, but there was no trace of any pedestrian or vehicle, save a posse of policemen on duty, armed with canes. Scarcely one or two distantly located milk kiosks on the main road were open, selling milk sachets across counters that were half-open. Cops on duty cautioned buyers to stand on the social-distancing squares marked on the ground and the sellers to finish their transaction at a quick pace since they had permission to do their business only for a brief period in the mornings and evenings.
Setting out from home, a tad after the gloaming, I would walk along such deadly, deserted streets where the sight of stray dogs pulling out bags of waste food from roadside garbage bins, scoffing from them and leaving the remains strewn all around would draw my attention, obliging me to pause awhile. Walking further I would reach a bus stop and park myself on the seat, only after wiping off the thick layer of dust--a condition that may have been a consequence of disuse during the lockdown-- with the piece of cloth, a constant content of the hip pocket in all my pants.
Finding me sitting alone some peckish-looking stray dogs would haltingly draw near me. As I fondly flicked my fingers at them and stroked their head with my palm, they would fawn over me, placing their forelegs on my knees and nuzzling against my thighs, till I stood up trying to stop them from doing so.
Back at home, the hard work of slathering my purse and cell phone with the sanitising fluid followed by a thorough wash of my mask, hanky as also the piece of cloth ever up for grabs in my hip pocket left me more done in, than the long walk. Getting wind of the comments from a few in our neck of the wood about my brisk regular walk during the grim days of the lockdown, my missus feared they might be setting eyes on me and advised me to abridge the frequency of my constitutional. Abiding by her humble suggestion, I scaled down my health-walk to thrice and sometimes even twice a week.
That there are some around us in most of the residential localities whose business is always to mind that of others I learnt only at the expense of diminishing the frequency of my regular walk.