Kottakupam -2

Kottakupam -2.
April, 15-2020.
It is april 15th today, the by prime minister Modi called lockdown is already lasting for some weeks. How many people already became a victim of the virus, I saw today on television, it must be around 8000, around a few hundred people died, that's what I understood; I must say: not that many as could be expected in a big country like India with around 1.3 billion people.
I am very happy to have my shakuhachi and that I can spend time on it on a daily basis. That's at least on thing I can do to make my life still useful, next to the regulair things like: eating, daiy care of sleeping, waking up, my daily self care of washing, showering, shaving, clothing etc. These things we do whether there is a corona crisis or not. I am not that very young anymore, and in a fysical way I am happy to be still in a rather good shape: I don't need to do my daily exercises like sport or something like that. It would be great if I would have a swimming pool or something like that, but so sad: there are no, the ones that are around are closed because of the lockdown: it would be great because the wheather is really like I could use one; but I can take a shower from time to time when the temperature becomes too hot. 
April, 19-2020.
I am still in the lockdown, I heard today this is gonna last until 3 may at least: that means about 2 more weeks. 
I am glad I have some friends: today 2 of them passed by, I was happy to see them. One of them is a good friend from a small village, not too far from here. He, for a long time already, wants to marry, but for a long time he did not have the money to build the house where he is planning to go live; he also did not have a job to earn the money to pay the people to build the house. So from time to time I gave him some money to help him. He was really not a lucky guy, because many times he also had fysical problems, like when he had kidney problems: he had to go to a hospital for some time, to get rid of some stones inside his kidney. It costed him a lot of money, for the hospital and also for medicins. So, at last the house was nearly finished and he  was nearly ready to go marry. So we went to the house where his bride was living: that was very far, the ride to get to her family's house took about 5 hours, she was living in a very small village, it was about 100 km before Madurai. 
April, 22-2020.
In this vey small village lived about 200 people, most of them very simple, most of the children never before in their life had seen a white guy like me, so some of them keeped on looking to me until their eyes fell out. It was also not easy to communicate with them, they never learned to speak English, I only knew about a few words Hindi. But the daughter of the family made us a nice meal to feel home and at ease.
So the whole store was that it was a long ride and it took a long time for my friend to get married. Back home my friend told me that some things still had to happen with his house before it was ready for him to live there and he and his bride-to-be were ready to get married. The date was set on 29 march. But also the corona virus started to have its disastrous journey over the world and als India.
April, 23-2020.
In this period I moved to another house. It was just before the corona virus started, I read in the Netherlands it really became a big issue. In India also a lockdown started, so I heard from my friend that the date of his marriage was changed, the new date was 9 april, they were planning to have a very small and simple celebration because of the corona. I was not allowed to leave my house. My other friend was used to bring me my food on a nearly daily basis. But now he also was not allowed to reach me: although he did not live far from me, he had to cross a big road and everyday there were a lot of policemen to cheque everybody if people crossing this road had a real good reason to cross that road, else they were not allowed to. So from now I had to make my own meals. I was happy there was a supermarket not far from me, just on the other side of the road, so I was able to buy food and drinks that I wanted. 
I wondered how my other friend was doing, he was planning to marry soon now. He sent me a message: he was lying in a hospital! Wow! I was happy it was not because of corona, he had had an accident with his (motor)bike. (Here always everybody calls it bike, but to prevent misunderstandings I call it motorbike). He had had an accident and the bike had fallen all over his body, especially his leg. So he was really wounded, he had to stay for some more days in the hospital. So his marriage still had not taken place: I think we can call him "mr. Bad Luck" because of the moments of bad luck he already had gone through.
Now the date is already 23 april, the lockdown is still here. It seems until 3 may, but I cannot say for sure. People get used to it and many people have to find some food somewhere. So I don't know, I can only say my other friend comes to bring me food sometimes, I think life slowly changing back to normal