Life in Corona Times

In lazy slow motion, like a sloppily shot scene of a bollywood potboiler, the exact moment when it, the virus, actually entered our life plays itself over and anon. We have just started dinner and are half tuned into Mr Modi’s address to the nation when he announces that from midnight of that night, the country is going under lockdown. For a second no one speaks: none of us are sure that we heard it right. But then he repeats it and in a nano second we get into survival mode. I still remember the adrenaline rush, the exact order of the vegetables and fruits I picked up that night, the panic buyers clamoring for milk and other essentials, the empty shelves and bread cartons in the neighborhood shops, the realization that terror  now had a new name and it was COVID-19.

For about a week life was all about reading up on the virus. We would exchange real news, fake news, forwards- anything and everything, at mealtimes, on family whatsapp groups, over phone calls. Everything was inside out, or should that read outside in? Where earlier one stepped outside the serenity of the house to be immediately enveloped in sound and people and watchful eyes, now the outside was quiet and calm and the unhingement was all inside. We tried to wrap our heads around what was happening. And everything seemed to be happening at the same time, in an uncoordinated avalanche of ruthlessness. Salary cut for the first born, an indefinite postponement of law school Day Zero  for the younger one, no house help, an office bereft of staff for the husband. But then slowly we emerged out of the shapelessness and elasticity to find our Mojo. 

 Laughter was now in seeing the son making the beds and the husband setting the table for lunch and dinner. Love was in the sheer indebtedness of being together and alive.  Work from home and online classes helped maintain order and rhythm. The husband discovered the joy of working in an empty office- the luxury of putting his feet on the table! And I discovered that Sooraj Barjatya had got it right some twenty-five years back: as long as Hum Saath-Saath Hain, even cleaning, cooking and washing up had an endearing appeal.

What has also been proven right is the ability of humans to adapt. The pandemic may have forced us to break with the past and build a new world of social distancing but this world is no different from what we were living in. As a matter of fact, it’s an even closer, more contracted world where the friend in Singapore, the niece in London and the cousin in the US are as close as the sister in the city. It is a world where distinctions have blurred. No one will be traveling for a long time, posting touched up pictures, wearing Prada or attending book launches. It’s also a more convenient world. Bored of the conversation thread? No need for prolonged a good bye. Bad network connectivity is a fault proof alibi.

In all this unpredictability what has also been comforting is the tedium of human nature. We are wired to communicate, to attitudinize, commiserate, brag. I truly want to hug that person who is still able to talk about her friend who is so well connected that at her son’s wedding a thousand Very Important Persons were in attendance ; the one who will have a drool worthy dish placed strategically during a zoom meeting; the right winger who will take any opportunity to turn the conversation to a strident defence of Modi ji, the enthusiast who will share every joke on the whatsapp group. I feel grateful to them for being that bowl of Maggi , providing comfort in continuity.

And on many moments in this period, I have felt pride in the stoicism and fortitude of my people; gratitude for those battling for solutions, shed tears for strangers and understood that what we, the world, are going through is unique and shared. This period of retreat has also helped me to come to terms with fear, understand that the cocoon one is wrapped in at the moment is extremely fragile and can rupture at any time. Understood too that the very seductiveness of its name, Corona, threatens to engulf us all at some point in time. It truly begs the iconic question from the The Jacket: "How much time do we have?"

A  Lifetime. The solemness of the words, connoting the duration of a person’s life, of eternity, are almost never spoken lightly. Lifetime.  But, as life as we knew it, ground to a screeching silence, we are, without any doubt, living a lifetime within another one.  We will all remember this time we are collectively living in different ways: the fear, loss, pain, bonding and love. Maybe, just maybe, some of us may indulge in the luxury of denial and not remember these days. But in all this uncertainty what is certain is that we have earned ourselves a place in history. Maybe, a Salman Rushdie will write another Midnight’s Children and call it The Virus Generation?