Snip....snip....snip....Ahh! There go hubby's long hair!

Some childhood fantasies do come true and while we wait for the opportune moment all our lives, there comes a moment, during the most unexpected times, that we finally live our dream. That moment of fun for me was today, the 29th day of the official and 36th day of our self-imposed lock down. 

While most men are oblivious to the fact of styling hair differently, my husband is renowned for his hair experiments. Those who know him well, will vouch for that.From long, to curly, to straight, to even going totally bald every time he's on ship, he's one helluva person, when it comes to experimenting with his hair. 

Now coming back to the childhood fantasy I was talking about. As a 6th or 7th grader, I read a story, 'Maggie cuts her hair' from the novel, 'The Mill on the Floss'. In that story, a girl named Maggie chops her hair as an act of anger and defiance. As I read the story, I was marveled by the fact that she had actually chopped off her tresses herself!

Wanting to experience the pleasure of hearing that sound of 'snip...snip...snip' and seeing the lovely thick hair falling to the ground, today, I finally got my Guinea Pig in the form of my husband. This time round, he had long hair. He had been enjoying that look and it was only getting better as his hair grew longer over the past 2 months when we last clicked a picture but due to the increasing heat, he was getting uncomfortable with them. 

Normally by now he would've been on ship and would have shaved off his head as he does every time, but the Covid crisis has kept him home and so as per his plan too, he needed a change. 
Completely unaware of my desires, he asked me if I'd be ready to give him a haircut....and Oh Boy! How I jumped at the opportunity! 

Setting up a chair for him in the balcony for the perfect view and armed with a pair of scissors, I started my job while the cool morning breeze blew around, making me feel absolutely heavenly! The best part was a ohone call from his friend, which kept him occupied and he couldn't object to anything, while I had my share of fun. Thick wisps of hair fell down as I moved the scissors merrily in his hair. I admired my skills as I styled his hair. After all there was nothing to lose. If at all something went wrong, I could always tell him to shave off his head :-D

Fortunately, as the phone call came to an end, so did my hair cut session. When he went into the room and looked into the mirror approvingly, I was ecstatic! 
Maggie had finally cut hair....but this time, not her own!!!

NOTE: Hadn't planned to write about it and so the thought of clicking his picture before the haircut, didn't occur. The cover pic has a 2.5 months old pic (for reference) and 'during the hair cut pic', clicked today.

ZOOM APP! The threat is REAL……

At around 11:12 pm last night, I got an SMS regarding some transaction on my credit card. I just happened to notice it as I was looking at my phone at that time. Thankfully I was awake, so I was able to notice the message immediately else it would have been a problem had it been a regular day but due to this lock down, I was up that late.

As I told my husband about it, I got an alert of another transaction. We both were like, “The credit card has got hacked!!!”

Let me go back a few days....the ugly corona virus confined everybody indoors and forced the schools to shut. Every school had to look forward to ways and means to keep the classes going. Amidst this crises, Zoom app suddenly started gaining popularity and became a common platform for all meetings. It began being used widely until few days ago, multiple posts about privacy issues started surfacing. I tried to reason with the concerned people about data theft being a real threat but it was not taken into consideration and so it just went on. All this while, my husband and me were ill at ease about this and he would often ask me to put my foot down but I showed reluctance in taking it head on. 

Yesterday morning, I did put my point across once again, citing data privacy concerns. Ironically, the same data theft that I was trying to caution about, stared right into my face that same night. One after the other, unauthorized transactions started taking place.

I immediately called the bank's credit card department to block the card but due to Covid issue, my call went on unanswered for 15 minutes. Meanwhile another alert came. I was going berserk, so I decided to login to my netbanking to hotlist the card. Managed to do so but still wanted confirmation about it and also wanted to know if anymore transactions had taken place. For over 1 hour I kept calling them but the auto tape continuously kept telling that all customer care executives were busy. Majorly traumatic it was.

Meanwhile my husband uninstalled Zoom app from my laptop as we were strongly suspicious about it giving remote access to my laptop. Eventually we changed passwords for our email and banking accounts.

Today morning called up customer care again but to no avail. So then called my relationship manager who got me connected and had me sent a dispute form and confirmed that 2 more transactions had happened of which I wasn’t even aware as I had not received any alert for those. The card was confirmed as being blocked and I filled the dispute form, scanned and mailed it to the Credit Card team. Hoping for things to be sorted on that front.

My school online classes still run on Zoom but I told the Principal that I wouldn’t be using it any further. You see, I finally did put my foot down. It wasn't well received and advocacy of the application took place, but me being me, I flatly said NO means NO in this case!

So all of you who are reading this- Don’t use Zoom. Uninstall it. The transactions made were all outside India on Play Store. Best part is all of us at home use Apple phones, no android so we don’t have play store. Just hoping, this post helps prevent people from falling prey to hackers and saves you all from online data theft. Stay safe people!

Lock down diaries……..

Today is the 7^th of April 2020, day 14^th of the 21 days lock down which was imposed with the intention of curbing the spread of the deadly virus that the entire world is battling. Corona Virus, Covid-19, China/Wuhan virus……so many names but the result, just one! Disease, pain, death….this virus has definitely crippled the entire world.

Nobody knows whether after 21 days the lock down would be over or if there would be an extension. If you ask me, I’m so scared of the way this disease is spreading its tentacles everywhere, that I’m not sure whether even after the lock down is over, I’d be mentally prepared to go anywhere soon. Who would have imagined that simple things like a handshake or a hug would start appearing worrisome, or that one would frantically keep sanitizing hands all the time? Bizarre to say the least!!!

People say these are difficult times, I say they are different and difficult:

•  Difficult, because even in our wildest dreams we would never have thought of a life when the whole world would be battling a disease which can spread like wildfire. It appears to be far worse than World War 2, as even then, some people had wanted a war and that is why it happened, but here, no one wants it yet it is happening and that is the bitter truth.

•       Different because many of us are exploring that side of ours which remained hidden somewhere as we were so busy in the mundane mechanical lifestyle that we had no time to sit back and reflect. This lock down is bringing out the best and the worst in so many of us.

Some people are picking up their long lost hobbies, which is actually so good as it is giving those people a chance to channelize their energies in a positive way but what is hurting me most at this time is that some people are picking on other people and that, my dear friends is certainly not cool!

We are all independent thinkers and its quite natural that we have our own way of thinking. Each human being is entitled to have her/his own opinion about a certain issue. Two children born to the same set of parents think differently, even a coin has two sides, so why on earth would two people have the same opinion about something. To each his own. A healthy discussion or debate wherein people talk about facts and share their thoughts is something which is always welcome but resorting to foul language and criticizing someone just for the heck of it, well, that is definitely not acceptable!

I know the lock down is having serious implications for many, but then again, it’s totally up to an individual how to take this. Some people are trying to bring positivity in other people’s lives and some are collecting all the negativity and targeting others. This is the time to rise above petty politics because human life is above all this. We need to stand together, in solidarity with those who are trying their best to keep us safe. If small gestures like clapping hands or lighting lamps can bring some hope and positivism and break the depressive monotony of our essential workers then so be it. You don’t have to love your PM to do this, you just need to love humanity.

The lives of so many people are at stake, ours included. Who knows, I’m writing this article today and after a few days, weeks or months this deadly virus might have taken my life as well!

So, let us keep all our political differences aside, stand united and face this threat. Let us spread love, peace, positivity and hope.

In this moment, we all should be JUST humans bound by a single thread – HUMANITY.