Memories

What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?

“Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

Author Unknown

March 2020 caught us by surprise, and we coped with the start of the pandemic and all the restrictions that were suddenly imposed on us as a community. The first month witnessed extremes in emotions, feelings, and beliefs. I swung between disbelief and horror, disbelief that borders closed, and horror at the travesty that unfolded around me. Supply chains were hit, accessing necessities became tougher and the sheer wastage on the streets was astounding. This was a dystopia. But it was during this period that I understood what hope was. The slivers of faith and humanity shone through the random acts of kindness from people in various walks of life. But even with all this, I continued to hope for a better April. Open borders. Functioning Flights. Beckoning Borders.

But April, May, and June were similar, in terms of closed borders and horrors on the streets. Extremes in climates and extremes in emotions. These were the months that made me experience the evolution of man. Raging hormones with no outlets. Closed borders and closed doors, hiding the horrors within. Domestic violence. Bereavements. Pet adoptions. Was this the new norm? No one knew. But this was the reality. With no newspapers, and televised news only publishing the horrifying numbers. Doomsday looming a lot closer every minute. A new dawn symbolized a fresh start. But a fresh start to the same horror. This was Groundhog Day. Every day.

First the pandemic. Then the closed borders. Then the vessel drumming followed by absolute silence. No communications. No vehicles. Curfew. And the silence. The silence was the worst. It always made me want to shake my head fast from side to side. They said, ‘Empty vessels make more noise.” And at this point, I did not mind that noise either. But the silence. That’s all there was. All through May.

In early April, I had assumed that when the borders closed, the world would revolt, and force borders open. Things would resume and get normal eventually. But the exact opposite happened. Borders continued to close. Flights did not resume. Even the falling economy, or loss of livelihood, or loss of lives made no impact. I promised the kid, that this would continue only for a few weeks more, and we would celebrate the birthday together as a family. But May did not release us from the clutches of horror. The horror was not the pandemic itself, but the constant worry. Would we be a family forever separated? A sibling in South-East Asia, one in Mumbai, Spouse in the Middle East, and Mum in the same city, but living away because of curfew. Would the borders never open? Would this day never end?

“What a year these months have been”.

Author Unknown

We celebrated our first birthday in the family, without the family. Organized over a Zoom call. All of us living in our tiny cocoons. Each bubble thrives in its isolation. And every day saw a new OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) convert. Obsessive about cleanliness and compulsively washing clothes, hands, objects, and groceries. We were at OCD Level 1.

Then June dawned, bringing with it new hopes. The monsoons would wash off the trauma. The water would cleanse the earth and life would restart. Or so I thought. But it was not to be. It was more of the same. The summer months of April and May had the sun shining brightly, but the month of June brought with it bleary skies pregnant with clouds. Clouds that refused to burst. It was like someone hit pause. Everything was still. Frozen. And every day that ended with no rain, slowly started to increase the worry. They were late. When they did come, they were following social distancing. The duration between rainy days had increased. Was this just nature following government protocols or was this climate change? Low rains. More sun. Great in the city. More trauma as the villages were dependent on the monsoons for their livelihood. A different kind of horror unfolded.

Change of climate. Allergies season starts. Water logging and flooding. A different set of ailments set in. And there was a curfew. And there was social distancing. Doctors were inaccessible. Hospitals were shut. Only ERs worked. A sniffle here. A sneeze there. What could be cured with an inhaler or antihistamine, now required life-preserving measures.

The second birthday loomed large. I had hoped to be with the family by this time. But no. We were still in the bubble. Kids no longer wanted to go down. Or out. Or invite anyone in. Curfew was lifted. So, the sage of the bubble life continued. We ordered in cake, from the only place that sold it. Local borders started to open. It was slow. Arduous. Small businesses started to provide basic services. We were back in the early 2000s. Delivery would reach the gates. You masked up and went alone to pick it up. Basic groceries and food items reached you, not because the supply chain had restarted, but because the farmers had found a way around the middlemen who had abandoned them. Sometimes deliveries were lost in transit. We were in the early 2000s! My first set of deliveries were the thermometer guns and the pulse oximeters. It became a ritual. Every day we would check ourselves. We would note down the numbers. We graduated to Level 2 on our OCD scale.

Then the rumors started. Flights were restarting. Borders were opening. Hospitals have found a way to isolate and identify the virus strain. Just two swabs are required – nasal and throat. I went online. I had a flight booked for the end of June. The helpdesk had no clue. But they promised to keep us in the loop. The last week of June passed. Flights did not take off. I pushed the ticket dates by a couple of weeks.

Then came July. The rains came a little more. Things were a little wet. But the bubble life thrived. Schools had restarted. Online. Children in the city struggled to cope. But children in the villages and Tier 2 cities grappled with no devices. No classes. And no teachers. Covid statistics were nothing. The number of children missing out on education was a revelation. It seemed like this was the end. This is how life, as we knew it would end. The rumors about flights resuming continued. We had our tickets blocked for mid-July.  Then pushed it to the third week. Then we just waited. News of divided families flying across the world to get to their destinations hit the headlines. The US had opened borders, as had some parts of the Middle East. I was tempted. The kids were losing hope. I was losing hope. I had frequent conversations with the spouse and the family every day, to keep up the façade. It was those conversations that buoyed me up. And I tried my best to support them.

August brought with it, a new set of rumors. Flights kept announcing they would restart, and dates kept getting pushed. We had already rescheduled our tickets a couple of times. Once at the end of June and once at the end of July. Every time we rushed to the hospital the evening before the flight and did the swab test to get the COVID-19 negative certificates. And the flights had not been scheduled. Mid-August saw the next set of rumors. Flights were restarting. We took it as a sign and booked an alternate flight on a different airline. Dare we hope? We crossed our fingers and went to the hospital to get our tests done. I had been monitoring the kids. Level 3 OCD achieved! We had moved from basic cleaning and sanitizing to monitoring our vitals to doing regular PCR tests. Even the nurses who conducted these tests recognized us. And now, they also hoped we would take off and reunite as a family.

Five months. It was five months of worry. The constant fear that things would never be the same again. It was five months since the unthinkable had happened. Five months since the foundations of our belief systems had shaken. Five months since I discovered that all of us were selfish. We were all governed by our insecurities. Five months where we all confronted our worst fears and lived in a place of terror. And if there is ever a place I would never want to visit, it would be this place in my head where the memories of these five months are stored. It was during these five months that we lost Mum to the big C. It wasn’t COVID, but Cancer. The sense of abandonment. The sense of hopelessness. And then the sense of relief. That it wasn’t covid. That she did not suffer. It hit me hard. And I don’t want to revisit this place.

“It’s sad when people who gave you the best memories, become a memory.”

Author Unknown