Environment and Us - One-time Plastic Usage

2020 Pandemic response meant reduced human activity & presence, which let Earth recuperate. Animals were roaming freely & plants were growing in abandoned places. But human response saw increased usage in one-time plastics and other things which became thrash after one-time usage. Like PPE masks, gloves and plastic bags.

Cloth masks with their use-n-wash & reuse again are cool alternatives to the use-n-throw blue masks. But there are other aspects which got left behind and should not be forgotten.

Individual actions

Shopping Bags

* Got the repeat-use thylas/jhoola/bags to cut down the one-time usage plastic-bags taking up all of the under-sink cabinet space. 

* Canvas bags for heavy duty grocery from Indian stores. Lighter fancy ones for Target, Aldi & others. 

* Have multiple bags in the car trunk. Once we haul groceries home, we are generally too tired to put them promptly back for next shopping trip. 

* Lockdown times was bit unsure about carrying personal bags to public stores. Most stores asked me to bag items on my own, which is fine. And for some that I was unsure, I left the bag in trunk & got groceries in the cart to the car, like the usual shopping in Costco/Sams. 

* Saved all the time from sorting bags to dump in designated spots. Saved space at home otherwise littered with plastic bags.

Purple mesh bags are purple onion bags from Costco/Sams. They are in great shape to use as is. White strip of labels need to be cut off; else the bar-code interferes with the cashiers scanning. In pre-pandemic world, got compliments from atleast 5 fellow shoppers. But I stopped using it on 2020 & am slowly getting back to it.  

My COMPOSTING adventure. 

* Got the black composting bin from City. I know a lot are available on Amazon. It’s placed in the backyard, close to veggie patch. 

* This winter I put up a bin on deck for a stop-gap arrangement. Filled it on daily basis and when snow melted on the path to outside bin, emptied it to larger bin. Our thrash-bag output is reduced to 1-2 per week. 

* Organic waste in in bags in the large bin, coz makes it easier to move the black-gold to the veggies patch. I got tired of shoveling it from the floor one summer.

* Earthworms - I never bought any. Only the ones we found while digging for regular garden work - those went in the organic waste bags.

* Smell is not a problem. In winter it’s all frozen. After defrost any smell is locked inside the bin. Once it turns black gold, there is no smell at all; just a hint of Mango & pineapples. 

* More composting tips here: https://recycleminnesota.org/work/compost-bins-rain-barrels/

Gardening tips:

* Rice & dal washed water straight to plants will yields immediate flowers. 

* Put banana peels (minus the end hard parts) & egg shells in blender & purée with water. Put it straight to potted plants or veggie patch. Heard the same with potato peels, but haven’t tried it. 

* Tidy cats boxes make great containers for veggie plants. I borrowed from a neighbor & planted creepers ( watermelon & butternut squash) & Malabar spinach. (White paint box container garden pic from Gardening FB group). The creepers would stay clean away from soil and I could move the containers anywhere I liked for sun.

 

Political muscle

Individual actions to recycle & reuse will improve that family’s lifestyle quality. But without support from infrastructure, even the best intentions see limited action. 

* Toronto & Bengaluru have city collection systems for separated organic waste; which all goes to a central composting facility. 

* Meanwhile entire Texas state does not have recycle at any spot. Imagine the amount of landfill being used just by plastic & paper. 

However, individuals act is limited by political guidance. Hence it's important to influence or be involved in the political direction of the city, state & country. 

This article captures this relationship in detail: “....without strict laws to curb carbon emissions, no individual’s choices matter all that much. For them, the most important action is political — to try to change the direction of national and global policies....” 

Likewise, once the world is back on its feet, I hope there are more measures strengthening & improving all aspects of these, while reducing burden on the environment.

• medical waste disposal
• landfill 
• PPE manufacturing

Office Pantry politics

Office pantry is quite a unique spot. 

Its a meeting spot. Some people gather & conduct an impromptu meeting, with complete specific details. Some gather to gossip about their office nemesis or boss or process. Then there are loners who glide in & out of pantry doing only what they came to do.

Layout wise it generally has a Scotsman water filter/cooler/dispenser. Vending machine for snacks or carbonated drinks. Refrigerator for office folks to store their lunches & other food, sometimes all week or month long. Few microwaves for office folks to heat their lunch or coffee or popcorn. Some pretty much do the cooking. Those ready-to-eat packages need 5-10 minutes of microwaving.

Sink is a major boiling point. Dirty cups or food crumbs left in sink are major trigger points. From time to time, some put up passive-aggressive notes.

Some deal with it in a funny way.

One time when 2 microwaves broke down, then the default solution is to walk up or down to the next floor & use theirs. A poster came up polling for "Guess When the New Microwave will come & win a Microwavable meal." Way to keep it interesting.

All that I am describing applies to North American offices. None of this would make it to a show like Office or any movies showing corporate offices. But this drama is too entertaining to be lost in space.

In the current remote working world, especially for those who have got out of college and started working, the absence of this spot is going to leave a vacuum in their work experience.

Living in the New COVID World

So how is the COVID world going on ?

Nature has been reclaiming its space. Deers have been roaming confidently around all neighborhoods. And chomping on everyone's freshly grown veggie gardens in the Summer. One such did that to my bean plants & made our neighbors newly planted apple tree, bare of all leaves. Bunnies have been equally bold and out in open.

Yet almost all are gardening after the spring quarantines ended. This summer garden centers ran out of pots whenever I went there. Shopping for plants also had urgency. In Minnesota, gardening of ornamental and vegetables is from May till August. This year the frost has come very early as last week of August. Likewise there is a spurt in gardening hobbies in other states and in India. This interest along with work from home-town, could mean the younger generation could go back to Agarian lifestyle while working corporate. That would be ultimate life.

Masks have become mandatory. Not that we mind. 

Travel & outing to closed spaces are gone. 

Every door handle is opened with a tissue in hand.

Opening those plastic bags in grocery stores with gloved hands in indeed a challenge. This pic is real struggle.

About eating out, we haven't dining in, except one time in an abandoned Indian restaurant, late close to closing time. We were the only ones and the tables looked like they have never been eaten on in the recent times. The whole stay was guilt-ridden, "Did I do the wrong thing?" Order was late to arrive, as the take-out delivery ones were piled up, but ofcourse was invisible to us.

Now with WFH or remote working for most corporate jobs, mean that we don't need to live in the same city as our office. Not even same state. And this means a big deal in India, where it had lead to clustered growth in some cities, while there is real estate space & breathing space in Tier 2 & 3 cities. Now most of the younger corporate & IT folks have gone to their hometown, close to their families and are working from there.

Epics for comfort in 2020

In a year like this, memories of epics watched last year are bringing in some comfort. Got a chance to see various depictions of epics and that is so comforting.

Most of the epic performances are goosebump inducing whether a live concert or on movie theatre screen.

Mahisasurmardini performance by Natyakala Dance Group, Minnesota . This performance was for the India Fest 2019 at St Paul Capitol grounds.

Yakshadhruva Patla Sathish Shetty and team performed Mahishasurmardini in Hindu Society of Minnesota on 20-July 2019.

In March 2020, Doordarshan began telecasting Ramayana and Mahabharatha on TV, twice a day, to keep folks interested in staying home during the 2020 lockdowns. We tried watching the offline version on TV.

Whenever I have bought any superhero or Film or TV memorabilia dolls, I realized, this is the west version of murti-pujan. It has art, scuplture, emotion, devotion.

Watching Avengers Endgame last year in theatre did bring in the Mahishasurmardini pparallels.

Stay At Home America Diary

A lot has happened in March & April, I felt I should document the sequence of events we went through these 2 months in a post. Would be a great time-capsule to look back at, when things have improved. This pandemic induced stay-at-homes & shelter-in -place are unprecedented days, in peace-time. It's not like World Wars 1 & 2. Yet it's like them. And since this ties the entire world together, its like a WW3 where world fights an invisible enemy, really really invisible killer - COVID-19. But I will write my experience in Minnesota, USA, where I lived.

For someone with no foresight, things looked casual in March as well. Pandemic had not been declared & the contagious disease was happening in far east. I would scoff during office gossip, "Nah this is over-reaction. Things can never change." By 10-Mar, MN had 3-5 cases, mostly people who had traveled & were back home last month. That week, all of us got 2 days of work from home (WFH) for a trail basis.

On 12-Mar-2020 Thurs evening, I went with my kids to Sams Club, to pick up the eye-glasses we had ordered. The car traffic were snaking back to 3-4 roads, and parking lot looked full like never before. Once inside, I only went to pickup glasses,but spent most of the time staring at the crowd inside. They were all well-behaved and safely distanced like MN people usually are. But their carts were full and some were lugging 2 carts. The more I looked at them, the more contagious it got to me. I got into the mix with my kids and join the hoarders. Picked a cart & went hunting for milk & other staple supplies. Had heard the rumor about TP hoarding and here never even found where they are stocked. No rice. Looking at others carts, they were stocking up cereal & other canned foods. So I did the same. Once I was out, the fever did not recede. So I went to Walmart, Indians store & Cub Foods as well. To buy the stuff I usually buy. My poor kids, who tagged along. Ran into my acquaintances who were doing the same. The more we talked, the more fervor it brought. Throughout I was messaging in our US Family WhatsApp group, so the shopping madness spread there as well. After 4-5 hours of shopping, things calmed down when we went home. I still did not have TP, but I did not care about it. We have bidet-spray-guns !

I went again in the weekend. TP & meat Racks were really empty. I had only only seen internet pictures till then.

 

My husband came back on Friday from Tennessee, where he was for the week on work. For the first time, I physically restrained kids from hugging him right away. Had to explain on high-pitch, that he needed to discard his clothes and take a full clean shower.

Friday school turned out to be the last time this school year.  Governor announced stay-at-home order. Schools announced closure on Monday & office allowed us WFH. Schools were closed for 2 weeks. Each day we envisioned how we would travel for the Spring break, with all precautions. By the end of it, the flights were cancelled & refund issued. We even talked through about driving. Now its amazing thinking how optimist we were.

In these 2 weeks, schools formulated the e-learning plan and rolled it out. Next week was a regular Spring break week. And 5-Apr onward all 4 of us were rolling into remote work & learning mode. School picked one day and arranged for parents to pickup school books, iPads & supplies; all arranged with proper social distancing. I share these memes, not as disrespect to teachers. But just to show how hard they are trying and how much we parents are lacking. The 2nd one actually happened to me. I let my kids do their school work on their iPads, while I was buried under my responsibilities (office, cooking, etc). And then in the forth week, my little ones teacher pestered us for a meeting with all 3 of us. After few hits & misses, we had a zoom meeting, where she walked us to through the weekly syllabus, where it is shared and where R can submit his work. And turns out, he had not submitted anything all 3 weeks ! Big revelation. So the next week I stuck with the kid to finish his backlog from 3 weeks and the current week. It is hard ! Makes me appreciate all teachers hard work, in case I loose track of it frequently. With all respect, hats off to the teachers & all of the school workers.

Community pitched in as time went by. Social media is blessing to know & learn. For all its negativeness, it's a great tool to know, be inspired to actually do something we can.
So many individuals I knew were making cloth-masks and donating.

Hindu Society MN, IAM & Fit n Fab FB group stitched masks and donated other PPE to medical community in MN and did food donation drives.
Many families are posting Heart cutouts on their windows. I have seen in the neighborhood too. It is cheering. I was waiting for warmer weather to take the Diwali lights out. Now I am leaving them there for lighting on dark nights. Seriously, some times it get so deary, these things matter.

 

Adam Truman                                                                                      Kara Hobli

When the weather turned warm in April, everyone was outside. Really everyone. All the day long, we would see people running, jogging & walking at all times of the day. Dog-walkers just had to get out. I would go to the nearest trail and it was teaming with families, every single time. It was like eve people who had never walked outside before in their life, even they were out there. This meme has never been truer.

Another noticeable change in the neighborhood - everyone buying new outdoor sports equipment. Many installed Play-area stuff for toddler & young kids, since most public ones were closed. Tweens & teens were rolling out in rollerblades & bikes. Perfect to get-together as well as maintain distance. Many pitched badminton nets on their driveways, while many played tennis across the road between opposite house. No hack for swim-pools yet.

Then on warm days there are driveway parties. People get-together on driveway, standing or sitting 2 feet apart. Birthdays are celebrated with large signs or placards on the grass and guest dropping off with gifts & wishes. Most drive-by parades made news. People are still figuring out how to celebrate Graduation ceremonies & parties this summer - it being a crucial milestone for students here.

The weeks that followed were a blur of WhatsApp calls with family & friends. Office meetings / conference calls. Kids school assignments, zoom meetings & homework. Cooking thousand snacks & a day. And forwarding memes about all this. I logged the new normal in my previous post.

Sleep schedule went for a toss. As long we turned up for the earliest call, it was ok to roll out of bed at anytime. All alarms were permanently deleted. Not hearing those alarm-tunes, first thing in the mornings, was a great feeling. But being grungy from over-sleeping was not.

We cooked like it was a festival. Well we couldn't party with friends, so we might as well cook for our-self. And we snacked, like we had never learnt that clean eating meant being away from junk.

Grocery shopping meant stocking the freezer with ice-cream boxes - as many as we could. And no restrictions on kids. AT the peak, they were eating maybe 3-4 ice-creams a day.

Hedge Humor

This constant eating combined with grocery-store dread - has this emotion ever happened before ? The places which earlier were my stress-relievers, where I felt most welcome, my quiet-spots - Cub Foods, India Bazar, Target, Hyvees, Lunds & Bylerys. Uff, the agony of having to stay away from them !
Once we went through the first round of snack supplies, we had to go there again, didn't we? And we did. But the emotions were so different. That dis-trust of any other human closeby. That dread of them thinking the same of me. Not being able to show my smile to the regular workers & cashier - smile being behind the mask.

Once this was normalized, grocery shopping became as expedition. Get the demand list from everyone, and triple-check right before leaving home. Armed with mask & gloves. Being still cold, I could wear my long-winter-jacket without shame. When in the store, it was an exercise in precision - in & out. Refer to paper notes, not phone (to prevent exposure to phone); straight to the aisle, pick item needed, bill & out. Once home, throw every single garment, mask & gloves in the washer & jump into shower. Leave the bags (lingering virus) to dry out (except ice-cream & milk). Stocking the fridge came a while later; versus the old efficient self, who first put things where they belonged.

Bad side of humanity did raise its face in America, because covidiots exist everywhere.
Toilet Paper hoarders were a real thing. Major head-palm.
Violent protest marches to reopen shops, where the slogans were worded to show irreverence to the magnitude of the contagions power and promote conspiracy of democrat governors to destroy the economy.
Only part I would agree, about the need of support for small business and creative solutions for them to continue to be open. Wanting to open hair-dressers and cruises is such a brat-ish demand. But workers in those industry need support in other ways.

As someone said, being part of major historical event is not as cool as it sounded. It's better in history books. But its not like war and world is so much better place in 2020.
We don't know what the future will hold ? How human interactions will change ? We can only do our current duty for now.

Lockdown India Diary 2020

A lot has happened in March & April, I felt its would documenting it in a post. Would be a great time-capsule to look back at, when things have improved. These are unprecedented days, in peace-time. Its not like Indo Pak wars or like the 1975 emergency. Yet its like them. And since this ties the entire world together, its like a WW3 where world fights an invisible enemy, really really invisible, but killer.

All of extended family and friends live in India. Along with USA, we have been monitoring the changes in India. Wiki page for India response is well updated.

Pandemic COVID-19 spread was known in Jan & Feb. And things looked still relaxed in first half of Mar. Second half is when serious steps could be seen in airport screenings & traveler quarantines.

On 19-Mar-2020, Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation in details, and gently asked for self-isolation & stay-at-home, a voluntary Janta Curfew on Sun 22-Mar. While everyone stayed home that Sunday and made noise from their balcony to cheer the COVID warriors, which was great. But there were bunch of videos of how coviodiots thought 5pm was when they were set free and communed for feasting and outings enmasse.

Hence very soon, came the lockdown annoucement by Prime Minister Modi. Here is the annoucement video and experience the chilly pauses from 7:10 minute onwards. I heard it on VBS radio app and I really felt like this meme. This meme makes use of the dread from demonitization announcement. You have to give it to Modi for making imapcts !

 "Sampoorn desh mein, sampoorn lockdown hone wala hai." Even though we were already in Stay-at-home in MN, this announcement was for an entire big country like India. That is a big deal.

My family & friends had been in their home town much before the announcements. My cousin in IT in Bangalore, worked from home in our native Udupi. And my nephew studying in Pune reached home Bhilai while travel was on. My aunt & uncle were holidaying in Bangalore and were stuck there. Everyone had stocked on their food & medicines.

The negative optics fallout of this announcements were the pictures of people thronging in front of medical stores till late night. And in a few days large hordes of migrants labors showed up on highways. On the long walk to back to their home villages, since railways and flight have been closed. With backpacks of their belongings and holding hands with kids. Definitely this happened because solution for these two areas were not addressed in the announcement. Eventually good stories came out where migrant quarantines in schools painted & repaired the schools and dug wells, for the good of the school kids, while also acquired some education.

But in the days that followed, there were program announcements one by one, addressing different areas. Shops are allowed to be open for 3-4 hours in the morning half. By 27-Apr plans for methodical travel of stuck migrants, students & tourists was announced.
Farming & harvest season are being considered and various plans being rolled out everyday.

Artwork by my 8th-grade Jaiaditya Nikkumbh

Numbers wise India seems to be in well control, for a country of this population-size. I could only hear of support of social-distancing and staying home. Any spike due to any super-spreader was pooh-poohed. Lot of cultural upheavels in these few weeks. But thankfully no mischief could'n't spiral it out of control. Its a matter of self-survival right now, no matter which side you belonged to.

Many creative solutions came up. India sent out hydroxychloroquine to many countries. It was rumored BCG vaccines were responsible for immunity. Indian post provided mobile ATM service. While Indian railways provided their stalled train coaches as quarantine facility at short notice. Tatas provided their 5-star hotels as quarantine stay for doctors after their duty ended.

Indian Government leverage their Doordarshan archives so well, its a winner move. They re-telecast Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana and B R Chopra's Mahabharat. Along with them came Byomkesh Bakshi, Shaktiman and many other 90s. 90s nostalgia came full circle. This is definitely great tool to keep the people indoors happy and stay there. Ramayana & Mahabharatha are known for deserted streets during their original telecast. And they were brought back for the same reasons. AIR news share program reports & do fact checks to refute fakes news circulating in WhatsApp & social media’s.

There have been so many memes addressing the slow adoption of this new way of life. Husband-wife kids stuck in home 24/7, like the country & world was a Big Boss playing everywhere. Work from home meme. Missing the socialising part. Its too much to document here. But its everywhere, talking about everything in life.

So many COVID Warriors to salute. So many feel good videos honoring the sanitation staff of a the street. Hospital health-workers, doctors, nurses, technicians, .... Cricketers who got back to their police duty jobs. Beauty queens back as Doctors.

Mumbai mayor was back at her old job of nurse. Indian First Lady sewing masks.
Indian First Lady sewing masks

Police who did their duty of keeping people indoors, so many with a hard-hand and many with humor & with creativity.

Numerous organizations did charitable food donations to needy folks. Film celebrities were cited as useless people on whom the nations wastes their love & energy & money. Until some of them lead some charitable drives and donating from their own pockets to PM-CARES Fund.

For feel-good actions, Indians clapped & made noise in their unique way (thali-clanging, shank, dhol etc) on 22-Mar-2020. It's great to see a montage video of such actions from across world. 9-April 9pm was the night to light diya outside the house and to send a prayer. Since this is a non-disruptive actions, Indian from outside India did it in their timezone. Here is my #9pm9minute.

Lockdown has been extended multiple times and till 17-May. But it has been with more & more relaxations for different sectors - red, green & orange zones. Flights and railway are still closed. As someones said, being part of major historical event is not as cool as it sounded. Its better in history books. But its not like war and world is so much better place in 2020.

New Normal of 2020 Spring

Whoever said it was right. Being part of major historical event is not as cool as it sounded. It's more fun to read about it later. March and April of Year 2020 is a global pandemic event. It's jaw-dropping that a single thing has affected every single country. And government of everyone of them, are doing the exact same thing, with varied reactions from their people. Unexpected countries are behaving like leaders and are in control. Special mention to the commendable leaderships of India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz.

With lockdowns, stay-at-home, shelter-in-place and social distancing in place, there is work-from-home and e-learning is enforced everywhere. The first few weeks of March were wait & watch. There was still disbelief and expectation of going "back-to-normal" "next week". This means a lot of new normals are coming up. While it might be cringy at first, we are all embracing it slowly, as we can hug in real life.

Its the new normal to have background noise in work audio conference call. It took a while, but now it's reassuring that it's not odd. Decade ago, I had got an admonishment from my boss, because our dog was barking in background while I spoke. That was at 10pm IST call and dog was set free outside. Nothing I could do about it. And today we had a conf call of about 15 people, and each spoke about their bird whistling & dog playing with a toy & dog snoring, while someones baby squealed. Its just fine. No apologies needed.

Wait till the 2 min mark in video

Other day, while running with kids, I saw a father-daughter-dog were walking towards us, so I slide off the sidewalk to the grass & road. And they had done the same at the same time. Both of us laughed awkwardly & called out, "Its the new normal" :) Its also representative of Minnesota nice (the good type). This has been the case since March beginning. Most folks are working from home & schools were off for 3 weeks in our district. It also meant that a lot of folks were walking & running outside on streets & trails. But the unique part was they all always maintained distance from each other. Real social distancing when outside. This way we wouldn't loose the privilege being outside in this beautiful spring weather.

Schools have switched to e-learning after 3 weeks of vacation. Then other private classes followed the suit and suddenly Zoom was the hot new app to use. Everyone took a few weeks to ramp up, but most of the technology was in place to facilitate it. Dance classes, tutions, virtual get-together and Birthday parties.

Social distance is in place. But celebrations continue. Birthday parades in front of the house, by well-wishers honking their cars & carrying placards.

TV is the newly discovered blessing - the magical tool that will keep everyone indoor. And Content is not just the king, but emperor. OTTs are giving free trials. DD is showing all the 90s shows again, to cash in on the 90s Nostalgia for truly altruistic purpose. Big scale. I want talk abou this in detai, maybe a different post.

Like TV a lot of old things are being considered in this new normal. Like Hydroxycloroquene, washing hands when coming from outside, staying home, cooking more. So its wise words, that this is our opportunity to consider what is the "normal" we want to get back to ?  A few forums are using this piggyback climate change issues with this huge global change. Global economy is impacted, because people across the globe are doing only what they absolutely need. But side-effect is that air is cleaners, and animals are free-er to roam those spaces which are otherwise occupied by humans.