Until I spotted her sitting on the nest, Delhi had been grey and grim, turgid with a foul combination of particulate matter and fog. But on...
Until I spotted her sitting on the nest, Delhi had been grey and grim, turgid with a foul combination of particulate matter and fog. But on that day, the sun had come out and maybe that’s what caused me to see it clearly. Lodged in a wedge of the eucalyptus tree, the kite sat, as generations before her had, protecting her nest, allowing only her head to move.
I had recently returned from spending the better part of a globally traumatic year cocooned in Singapore, where order was the preferred weapon against the pandemic. The city-state was neat, prepared, precise, and I was aware of my privilege every day. Masks on (running merited exemption, walking did not). Social distancing defined in feet. A lockdown more accurately described as a “circuit breaker”.
Rules for everything – the number of guests at home, the distance between tables in restaurants, where you could sit and where you couldn’t in the doctor’s waiting room. Once the butt of nanny state jokes, there was a new reassurance that this was a government with a plan, that it was reasonably transparent with its citizens, that it would brook no deviation. Follow or go.
But Delhi was where my children were, adult women,...
