Baa.

May 2021

This old lady.

Charulataben.

Baa (grandma)

82.

Kind and generous and genuinely concerned and full of advice.

(Side note: Yo it is a task to stay mad at some maskless folk when they interact with you and you realise they’re just people, good-kind-hearted folk who just aren’t fully on their mask game.)

The truth is that she’s your typical old lady who’s lived a full life, watched younger family members pass away, most without loved ones by their side and she wonders why she’s lived so long. She said and I quote,” God is not just, he should have taken me instead and let them all live, they were all so young, but God does what he must, what can we do about it?”

She said it a bunch of times, that she wishes she hadn’t lived so long.

Absolutely critical of the Gujarat government and doesn’t shy away from letting us know what she thinks. Except for the parts where she’d criticise the PM, wait a few seconds then defend him and his actions. Fence-sitter vibes.

She brought her landline with her because she can’t work a mobile phone, understandable and very amusing at the same time.

It was incredibly LOUD and she missed 90% of those calls because she took too long to pick up.

Everyone on our floor already knows about her and her landline phone.

She keeps referring to us as beta in her kindest tone of voice too, every time she speaks to either of us.

She seems sensible in that way that you would expect an old person to be, just knowing things by way of having lived a long time.

However

She just does not give enough of a shit I feel.

The mask is always south of her nose when it isn’t fully shoved under her chin or taken clean off her face and put down beside her

She talks a LOT and laughs a lot, which is fine in normal circumstances but duuuuuude, she’s a Covid patient and whenever she coughs it sounds like she’s going to hack up her lungs with all the phlegm.

Do you see my predicament?

She’s been told to wear her mask, she double masks it too, they just don’t cover her face holes. Ever.

For instance, the nurse just walked in to draw her blood, the first thing she does?

Pulls her masks down below her nose.

Coughing bout, what does she do?

Yoooooouuuuu guessed it!

PULLS DOWN HER MASKS!

Jesus, take the wheel.

I mean, a little consideration for the people taking care of us could go a long way.

I said goodbye to sleep the night that Baa arrived, notorious now, for her total disregard for Covid protocol.