AFVOA Newsletter May 2020

Section 3 - Memoirs Newsletter No. 1 / 2020 P a g e 75 | 101 (Commodore Narayanan and Commodore Krishnamurthy). Again, one of them lives mostly in Hyderabad and the other mostly in USA. One civilian friend and his family go out of the way to take care of me. When the lockdown started on March 26 (I am not sure of the date), my caterer stopped service due to police harassment. Fortunately, I could find another caterer to bring lunch every day. The quantity was more than I could eat. The maid cleaned the house on alternate days until now. The super lockdown from yesterday added a new twist to the story. The caterer announced his inability to provide lunch during these four days. My daughters made frantic calls to me two days back from Columbus, Indiana. Day before yesterday, I asked the caterer to bring me two lunches - of course on payment. When the lunches arrived, I set apart a portion as lunch on that day (25th Apr) and packed the rest in stainless steel containers and stored them in my fridge. Also, on Saturday morning, I called maid's son and asked him to get enough fruits (banana, apples and papaya) and a packet of milk (to set curd). Luckily, I have adequate stock of biscuits and some snacks. All these would see me through the super lockdown. As my luck would have it, my friend's son brought just now half a dozen 'rava idlis' from his home in Alwarthirunagar. That lad works in SBI and has a car pass. Probably, I will set up a Guinness record of sorts for eating rice with 'vatha kuzhambu' on five consecutive days! I get up at about 6 am. After consuming my morning medicine, I start my computer to check the latest news and email. I solve the Sudoku puzzle of the day (dailysudoku.com) . From 7:30 to 8:30, I attend a class on 'Bruhadarnyaka Upanishat' through skype. The instructor is a scholarly pundit of my community. I spend half an hour on Yoga (mainly four breathing exercises). After a little bit of relaxation, I finish my bath and morning prayers. Then, I go for my breakfast consisting of some nuts and biscuits. That is followed by a little bit of channel surfing on the TV and Spider Solitaire on the computer. Around noon, I sit down for lunch. Around 1 pm, another scholarly pundit teaches, again through skype, one of the many works of Madhwacharya . That class lasts for half an hour. Then, I take a nap for about two hours. At 4 pm, I make a cup of ' sukku coffee' (more of a 'kashayam' than coffee) and drink it after adding two spoons of honey. Around 5:30 pm, I go to the open terrace for half an hour walk and fifteen minutes of rest enjoying the breeze. At 6:30 pm, I take out the cut fruits from the fridge for my dinner. I wait for half an hour for the fruits to return to room temperature. At 7:30 pm, I am in front of my computer for another class by a scholar. The subject is logic in relation to philosophy. The class lasts for an hour or so. I take notes and replaying the recorded lecture, I prepare summaries in English during my spare time. After watching the news channels briefly, I hit the bed around 10 pm after shutting down my computer for the day.