The Sky is Blue, by Anurag Hoon, New Delhi

Born in a small village called Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, and raised and currently living in New Delhi, Anurag believes you should “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Delhi is the place which gave me purpose, family, and home. But I am one of those people who has seen the skies of Delhi turn black, during my lifetime. 

The pandemic brought many difficulties and problems into our lives. Being in a small house with twelve family members is not easy. Being a musician, making new tunes, writing new songs, teaching 5,000 children every week became an impossible task. In the beginning, it seemed like this would all pass in a few days, but the days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. 

My music students started reaching out to me for dry rations. After a few hundred requests, we shifted our focus from providing mental nutrition, through online music courses, to providing physical nutrition. The team had to take a 70% salary cut. Even after distributing dry rations of rice, wheat flour, three types of legumes, sanitary pads, cooking oil, face masks, biscuits, gram flour, sugar, salt, cooking spices, soup, dental kits, milo for kids, and milk powder to 8,000 families, the numbers kept increasing. Everything was turning black, just like the blue sky in Delhi I used to love as a kid had faded. 

Then one day, when I was lying down on a bed outside my house and didn’t really have any hope of getting back to the stage or picking up my guitar to sing for children, I realized the black sky had turned blue again. 

Suddenly, I saw that the pandemic had also brought beautiful things into my life. I started spending more time with my son and teaching him some songs. I started cooking again– I made my favorites– paneer rolls, egg pataya, egg rolls, dumplings, egg pakodas, pancakes…

I couldn’t hold myself back and called my friends to talk about positive things the pandemic has brought.

I kept saying, “The sky is blue again!” 

My two-year-old son was listening curiously to all my conversations (sometimes I really feel that he understands everything and just pretends that he doesn’t). 

After I finished one call, he pointed his pink finger towards the sky and said, “Papa, the sky is blue.”

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(This story was prepared for an “Imagine Another World” online storytelling workshop held October 28, 2020.)

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