April 2021 was perhaps one of the toughest times I’ve lived through. I watched Coronavirus take over my city, bringing our health infrastructure to its knees. I saw desperate pleas on social media for hospital beds, medicines, and oxygen. My grandfather, nearly 101, finally breathed his last after years of pain and discomfort, demanding much from my parents, even though he didn’t suffer from any serious health condition and was lucid up to his last days. It’s May already, but I watch people I know afflicted by COVID, others being far from family that is struggling or worried sick about their parents. Some have lost dear ones and had the air punched out of them in a way that only grief can, except this time it follows no predictable path (can it, ever? have I just been naïve?) The young, the privileged, the seemingly healthy – we all seem to be in it.
A heaviness weighs us all down. Me, on many days. Sometimes, desolation expands and fills my chest like it’s a balloon, and when I lie down, I feel its weight in my chest. There are tears, sometimes without a reason I can pinpoint. Days truly blur into one another as I wake up and realise nothing much has changed – the city still struggles. I’m also lucky if nothing’s changed, because that means something good at a time when you worry if you haven’t heard from someone in a while. I see how in some cases, work has adapted to keep with the grimness of the times, but in other cases it continues as if nothing has happened to the team, nothing that sucks their life and joy, whether or not they are personally affected by the pandemic. And this time, there is nearly no one not affected by the pandemic. But work goes on, as if for every single person, it is distraction or refuge.
I have never felt as much before the meaning of empathy, as I grieve for people I don’t know. I feel the stress that someone far away, in a different city, maybe a different country, faces as they worry for their family. Their helplessness as they watch the situation unfold. “I hope you’re staying indoors,” they say, and I wonder what that means. I am, but will I continue to do that if someone close to me falls ill and I may have to find them a hospital bed or queue up to find one of those elusive medicines doctors prescribe (or feel forced to prescribe, for some strange reason, by the patient’s relatives)? What does it mean for the infection to be airborne – just what kind of interactions should we worry about? The delivery person, the vegetable vendor, the people who are keeping my life going while putting their own at risk? It’s hard to not let panic take over, desperately listening to others’ ideas of how things should be done even if they may not suit my own needs.
Amidst all this, a few things give me escape, calm, something to cling on to for hope. Crossword. Meditation. Music, my playlists lovingly, thoroughly curated over the years, so much so that I want to give myself a pat on the back for my thoughtfulness. Yoga every other day. Keeping the house clean, which gives me a semblance of routine, “normalcy.” Baking – measuring every ingredient precisely and mindfully putting it together and watching it happen in the oven, the delight if it turns out okay (I set the bar low), the slowly-building ability to move on if it doesn’t. Cooking and doing the dishes. A move every week, an episode of something every now and then. Work, especially on stress management. Connecting with friends, cousins and loved one.
The cute surprise, though, has been the Gratitude Jar. In March 2020, I put up a jar with a label ‘GRATITUDE JAR: #lifeduringCOVID19’, that VK and I would drop little slips into, with something that we’re grateful for. I was quite regular with it until around August, when the city started opening up and it was okay to visit a friend. By the end of the year, I was hardly using it. In March 2021, I wanted to mark a year of the jar and ceremoniously open it and read the chits. Eventually the ceremony didn’t happen, but we occasionally dip into it and open a chit or two. This has been utterly delightful.
I’ve been grateful for friends, family, colleagues. For songs. For the weather changing and watching spring unfold. There are bougainvillea flowers in the jar, from the April 2020 blooms. And for curd “setting like a dream,” which made me laugh – my thayir saadham priorities! For rasam made in an eeya sombu, a lead vessel that somehow makes it taste divine. For beer <3
As a metaphorical carnage sweeps Delhi, these ‘petty’ little things to be grateful for remind me to stay grounded. They distract, offer a momentary escape, tell me of the small things in life that can still be enjoyed. The heaviness in the chest remains, so does the fear. But like a little bit of sunshine that sneaks its way into a heavily curtained room, it reminds me that the sun is still out there – I may not be able to see it yet, but it will be okay to draw the curtains out. Sooner than later, I hope.
Stay safe.