Like plants, my mind cooks in the sunshine that falls down through the sieve of gooseberry leaves. It’s an illness-cured joy when the sun shines brightly after a few cloudy days. This is a recurring pleasure, especially in this age of cyclones. Though in the pandemic lock-up, the sunlight spurs me on to travel. I hanker for the side-window vista of the sunbeams falling on the tea leaves. How long shall I wait to walk again in the chill-mixed sunlight of Ooty, chewing fresh carrot? I want to fling my mask away, lie on the sun lounger, letting the sun warm me with the vital vitamin. Standing behind the virus-line, I watch a flock of temple doves in the sunlit air. A hen suns itself in the yard. The unmasked delights abound around. Yet I too have to succumb to the human fate. First published in The Literary Hatchet (issue #30).