Swimming after Covid

My hopes of a mild summer after a year when it rained every month were cruelly dashed in early March. Summer came early and ferociously this year. For the last month it has been blazing, with the temperature having soared beyond 40⁰ C in early April. And there has been no respite: not a single nor’wester rainstorm has arrived yet to cool us briefly off. There was a day recently when it was actually hotter in Durgapur than in Delhi.

 I last went swimming in 2019. Then Covid struck, and the pool was closed for two whole years. I knew that it has opened this season over a month ago, but – call it old age, or the irritation of having to drive 24 km through increasingly dense and erratic traffic every time or just plain lost habit – despite knowing that I would love a dip, I had been postponing a visit endlessly, until today. This morning I went, and enjoyed myself just as much as I had hoped. God bless them for reopening the pool. They have opened a new one much closer at hand, but I found it to be rather small and overcrowded, so I haven’t tried it out yet. I wish there were one in every large neighbourhood. If I were really rich, an all-year, full sized, personal pool would be something I should definitely indulge on…

 A lot of people seem to be awaiting a fourth wave of Covid with what can only be called ghoulish excitement, and sound truly disappointed that though the infection numbers are very slightly rising once more, as in January, the death toll is almost insignificant. Let us see whether God gives them their kind of satisfaction! I for one am delighted that countrywide there are no takers for the booster dose of the vaccine, and most people are not wearing masks unless compelled. Madness must be called by its proper name and laid to rest sooner or later.