Winning Lockdown

Chapter 2: Breaking The Cocoon

"You look like a train wreck." Quipped her mom while handing her a cup of tea. Shivya only nodded back with a saddened smile and sunk into the low stool near her mother's easy chair. The light breeze played with the wisps of tiny hair that stood at Shivya's hairline bringing a small comfort that Shivya greedily wanted to lose herself to. She placed her head on her Amma's lap with a heavy sigh.

"I got appointed as team lead, Amma." She said softly hardly concealing her sadness. Her Amma gently ran her calloused fingers though her hair loosening the clumsy bun she had tied up, but did not offer a reply and that made Shivya break into a mile a minute rant of everything that was said during Mr Khatri's meeting.

Shivya was gasping and heaving when she finally told her mother the about the task at hand. "Drink your tea dear. A nice cup of hot tea will help you to see things in a new light, and today dinner should be special. A promotion should be celebrated especially at such uncertain times when everything looks so bleak." And with a walk filled with purpose the strong willed old lady waddled off to the kitchen. Shivya sighed as she looked out of the balcony sipping her now tepid tea trying to make sense of her meeting.

It was only when she was shaken back to the present world by Kyra's screeching did Shivya realize the sky was now wearing a dark clock that glittered with sprinkled stars instead of the vibrant pink and peach clouds when she had sat down in the balcony. "Ma, we missed papa's call. What were you dreaming of?" asked Kyra in a cuteness only she could pull off while climbing into Shivya's lap. "Oh! I'm so sorry darling. Ma was thinking of a lot of things. We'll call papa back in a while. But first let ma just wash her face while you go and comb your hair and get beautiful for papa." She tried to sound jovial as she placed Kyra down and walked with her empty tea cup to the kitchen.

Ever since she was allowed to walk and do light work, Shivya's Amma had to constantly fight with Kanjan to be able to work in the kitchen. Kanjan feared she would be blamed if anything would happen to Amma while in the kitchen, but now as Shivya entered the kitchen she was surprised to see both women working together amicably and in sync. "Wow Kanjan, Amma won the fight?" she asked joking. "I gave up trying Didi, Amma is not listening to me and today she said it's very special dinner because you got some promotion. Also she promised to give a big gift for Diwali." Kanjan said trying to hide her smile from the thought of a promised Diwali gift. "Kiran had called me when he didn't get through to you. He told to call him in half an hour. Why don't you go and take freshen up. I'm he sure he would like to see you smiling instead of sulking." Chided her Amma with a hint of pride in winning over Kanjan. Shivya pulled a face that won a groan from her Amma and left to take a bath only to find Kyra laid across her bad deeply engrossed on a video playing on her phone.

"Kyraaa! Haven't I told you not to watch videos on my phone without asking?" screeched Shivya as she tried to catch the nimble footed child that was running across her bed with the phone clutched in her tiny hands. After finally catching the giggling child and rescuing her phone, Shivya sent Kyra off to the kitchen to have snacks while she went to take bath. As she waited for her bucket to fill, Shivya looked at what her daughter was watching and graoned to see the baby shark song video played half way through.

A quick bolt of idea flashed through Shivya's mind and as she watched the rest of the video, her bath forgotten, her idea started to take form in Shivya's mind. With a frenzy to capture the ideas darting in her mind, Shivya sat down to write and draw the basic outlines with random scribbles of different concepts. After an hour of frantic scribbling in half legible writing Shivya felt herself relax. As she finally stepped in for her bath, Shivya now had a plan that might save her team and her job. The only question left to answer was how to get the others on-board with this idea.

Kiran was happy to hear about the promotion and said they definitely had to celebrate it when he gets there. He tried to sound happy and at ease but Shivya could make out the worry and panic that was hiding behind his playful obsidian black eyes. As he sent a flying kiss to Kyra he gave a quick wink to Shivya telling her he'll be texting her later after Kyra goes to bed. With a small nod and terse goodbye, both Kyra and Shivya went to have Amma's special dinner.

"Let's read the pirate Story Ma." Said Kyra as she tucked her caramel bunny in next to her in bed. Shivya took the book and sat on the covers facing Kyra and started reading when she thought about testing her idea on Kyra.

"Kyra, let's try to write our own pirate story. It'll be like a game. Would you like to try?" asked Shivya as she took out a box from under Kyra's bed. Piqued with interest Kyra nodded yes with excitement. And so, Shivya started the story but as they reached certain points of the story Shivya would ask Kyra to help the pirate with "tasks" to help reach the treasure and along with the few pencils and papers, Shivya's idea had passed its first test with flying colours. But Shivya knew that she had a home field advantage with the test subject whom she carefully tucked into bed and kissed good night. If Shivya really had to know whether her plan would work, she needed to try with a child she was not close to. Lockdown could really make a few simple things really difficult, she thought glumly as she tip toes out of Kyra's bedroom.

Returning to her laptop with her tea cup in hand, Shivya send a quick mail to all her team members asking them to log in for a Google meet up the next day and also asked them to try winding up their current projects at the earliest. She also sent them a vague outline of her idea and asked them what they felt about it. After chatting with Kiran for a while about his current situation and getting assured that her idea did sound good, Shivya drifted off to a restless dream knowing that soon she will be playing a gambe where the stakes were too high.

Next day, Shivya's spirits were flying as high as a kite in the sky that not even the gloomy grey clouds looming outside her window could make her feel low. She was determined to tackle the task at hand with a can do attitude rather than fret and worry about how to execute her idea. With a quick mail to her friend in HR, Shivya was happy to find that many in her team had creative skills which would be heavily needed for the task at hand and also had experience in fields that weren't mostly used in their normal line of work. Kyra was in Amma's room learning an old children's song and Kanjan was with them folding the laundry. With a quick look at the mails from her team members Shivya was able to draw up a detailed report for Mr Khatri that showed where everyone was on their current projects and also give an estimate of by when they could complete it. She even gave a more refined outline of her idea for the team. With all the paperwork done for the days, Shivya stretched her stiff hands as she got up from her desk. She could feel the hypnotizing pull of freshly made tea that her body was craving for. Surprisingly, a report from one of her colleague gave a detailed analysis of the current trends in social media and also the apps that had shown a spike in activity during these first few weeks of lockdown. Luckily the data was supportive to her idea and that gave a boost of confidence to Shivya.