Corona Daily 001: Flashback: Part Final

Sunday 22 March 2020 placed 1.3 billon Indians under house arrest; vehicles – moving, flying or floating became still; the supernatural level of silence ominously hung in the air; people called one another for moral support – a few months later they would call not only to check how others were, but to make sure they were still around; India’s upper middle class and rich, Bollywood stars and cricket icons, corporate honchos and top politicians, all accustomed to maids and cooks, suddenly began washing dishes and mopping floors; stray dogs and rats and crows and pigeons, deprived of their regular meals, wandered sadly on the empty streets.

It was not a nightmare that would last for a day, it was the first day of the nightmare that would go on for weeks, months and perhaps years, end date unknown.

*****

India’s strict national lockdown continued for ten weeks-till the end of May. I remember a Danish friend asking me over the phone how my family was doing. I said my daughter was in school attending her classes, my wife delivering a lecture to her college students, I was at my writing desk, and all of us were in the same apartment.

With no house help allowed, I had picked up the task of hanging wet clothes. The job involves hanging clothes with a wooden stick on aluminum rods some 11 feet above the floor. In the first month, my dry-fit t-shirts and shorts kept slipping from the rod. They were too soft, and the rod was round. I had seen our semi-literate maid hang the clothes effortlessly. By the third month, I mastered it. Many Indians acquired new skills in those first months.

*****

Among the flashbulb memories is my Sunday morning run on 5 April. My running route has three promenades; the Worli Sea Face is one of them. Nearly 3.5 km in length, the promenade is always buzzing with people. When Indians say they feel Worli sea face is empty, it means it has only some 1,000 people strolling on it.

On my run that morning, I expected to confront a police van. I was carrying a mask in my pocket. UK had allowed one hour of daily exercise in its strictest lockdown which I thought was sensible. India was not so charitable; I was not supposed to leave my house. But since I had already budgeted 500 days for the pandemic, I couldn’t bear the thought of not running for that long. Weather was still good; air was unusually fresh and unpolluted. In the middle of the promenade, I suddenly realized I was alone on that stretch of 3.5 km, no runners, no walkers, and no policemen. I selfishly thanked the virus for creating that dreamlike moment.

*****

For most Indians, wearing masks and standing in queues were novelties. In cities like Bombay, there is not enough space to keep social distancing. In the first week, people pulled their masks down to talk to others or on mobiles.

I think it was sometime in the month of May that I was standing in a queue outside a grocery shop. I saw a girl walking towards the queue, and I was stunned by her attractive face. I couldn’t take my eyes off. All this happened in a matter of seconds. Then I realized she was the only girl on the road who was mask-less. For two months, I had only seen masked faces on the streets. I didn’t know her, she had probably forgotten her mask at home. Her face was not out of the ordinary, in normal times it wouldn’t be noticed in a crowd. But in that masked ocean of people, it stood out. That moment showed to me how much our lips, our chin, our cheekbones, our jaw add to our beauty, to our personality. I also wondered about pandemic babies starting their lives by watching only masked people. Would they lose their sense of aesthetics?

*****

 Sometime later, I think in July 2020, a runner friend (I could meet only my runner friends, if at all) said: What if this never ends? What if we must always wear masks, keep washing hands, and be afraid of getting close to others?

This was the same person who had confidently talked about strong Indian immunity and the hot weather in which the virus wouldn’t survive. By July, with cases and deaths personally known, he contemplated the pandemic going on forever.

I am glad to report he was having breakfast in a popular café with a bunch of friends yesterday. His family was leaving Bombay for a nearby resort this weekend.

Viruses eventually get tired. Every pandemic ends. This one will end as well.

*****

Ravi