Coping with the givens of adulthood: a pandemic in my 20’s (Part V)

Part 5: Taken for a ride

Have you ever been shaken out of a reality that took you ages to fit into? Let us make use of a cliched parenting trick to understand this. Imagine yourself as a typical adolescent who often gets into trouble. Your parents play the ‘boarding school’ card, and in a rather abominable parody of your Hogwarts fantasies, you’re actually shipped off to one; no ‘fragile’ tag attached. A mysterious ‘they’ frame a routine for a ridiculously large number of children; no ‘some contents under pressure’ tag attached. Keeping in mind your character as the nay-saying adolescent, chances are that your immediate response is resistance. When that inevitably fails, there is resentment, followed by misery. Then you make that first friend, and then two more. All of you start sitting together in class, the dining hall, the art hall and make the same harmless mischief. You scrape remnants of pickle from the same empty bottle and help each other write love letters just shy of a Parisian romance. In an ideal turn of events, you melt into this cast each day. And slowly, the abomination becomes a habit; until you are packing an entire part of you into tagged trunks to leave. This last story is a that of a life I didn’t think I could live.

In the months following Bohag Bihu (Assamese New Year in April), W and I started learning new things about the neighborhood; but mostly, about our neighbors. Every other day, the family across the hall would pass remarks as W went out to fetch groceries. In particular, there was a lady who, by her own admission, had single-handedly managed the infection in the society by asking (specifically) bachelors to go out less often. There were four people in the family: the very masterful lady, her husband, and their children-one daughter and one son. While social distancing has now emerged as the norm, the two spouses have perennially been separated by a metre of vain earth for years. Abiding the residents, the door would remain ajar throughout the day. The husband would station himself outside and sip from a cup that his wife silently poured tea into every few hours. There, he would often be joined by his son, and they would laugh at a joke; the mother and her daughter would not. This would go on for days, until one of them snapped like an ill-fitted lid and out came the two armies. As academically intrigued as I was to notice a possible *coalition playing out, sometimes, the lady would uncharacteristically request her husband to not be harsh. It was usually at that point that I would actively stop listening.

(* Coalition is a cross generational power block in a family. For instance, a power association between one child and a parent against another child or a parent. They become problematic when they are inflexible. Refer to Karin Hadfield’s paper for more)

A young couple lived three floors below ours. And in the strange quietness of the city, their presence was louder than ever. They had recently gotten married, perhaps just before the lock-down. The first time I heard the man scream, I was scandalized, and maybe even entertained. The two of them were fighting about text messages. Soon, the arguments became more frequent- once in a week, then twice, and then once in every two days. One night, we heard the woman wail with a tremor that I will always remember. With a broken howl, she kept asking her husband why he ever married her. And why he would put both of them through such agony when he knew that she couldn’t cook. When the argument continued for another hour, we called the only security guard whose number we had. There was another man in the adjacent wing, mostly disturbed by the noise, dialing a number as he screamed at the man to stop shouting. Threatening to be a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) officer, he kept screaming until the other man kept quiet. That was the last time we heard the two of them. A few weeks later, someone told us that the woman had left the house. The following month, we heard the CBI officer getting screamed at for watching pornography on his phone.

If I was a few tones chirpier, I would have turned to W and instantly declared: “We’re so much better!” And there is a fair amount of truth in that statement. W has never screamed at me, or made me feel unsafe. He is unbelievably calm and annoyingly patient. And at no point have I had to question whether the relationship was toxic or inhibiting in any way. And compared to the two couples in question, there was no doubt that we were in a better place. But as a professor once told us, there are always three people in a relationship: the two consenting partners and the relationship itself. And just like the first two, the third one is also sensitive to social climate. A furtive virus was (is) on the run and the whole world on a standstill. W and I had been seeing each other for less than four months and there was only so long we could care for courtesy. Sometimes, I would not want to speak and neither would he. And sometimes, one of us would be irked by this quietness, leading to a subtly disturbing confrontation. As matters became more personal, we cared more about the other one’s reactions and responses. So forgetting the eggs in the grocery store became a bigger deal than it was, burning the Rajma elicited a sigh and the ‘wrong’ responses became clearer. Academically frustrating issues leaked into dinnertime gloominess and the two of us took to different beds to sulk.

But by the end of April, I had stained all of his clothes with turmeric and lost two burping contests to him. Together, we had pushed and packed bulky furniture and created a seating that overlooked what I call the ‘best view’ in all of, well, Cotton green. Here, we would take turns to stare at the sky. He would have his cup of tea in the white of the morning and I had mine against the colorful song of the evening sky. It was an unspoken rule- the quiet of the room when each of us sat there. One night, after watching a film, I felt like I had to make something. We had a kilogram of flour that we hadn’t touched. So we fished for ‘things to cook with Maida’ and two scrolls later, settled on samosas. From four in the morning till seven, we made the most perfect batch of samosas and W ate four. We didn’t wake up till 2 pm that afternoon.

Dear reader, I remember telling you: it does not take a psychologist to tell you to raise your arms and ask for love when you need it. But it took me a voyaging virus to realize that sometimes, taking a time-out is neither insensitive nor unthinkable. As a woman who is petrified of deadlines, I have always found it difficult to discount the passage of time. Therefore, urgency to me is a toxic manipulator with a loud whip. But when one person in the trio (of the relationship) has twitchy legs, the other two also feel it. So when the tempers flare and all you can think of is urgently rectifying your hurt, to ask for an island of time to yourself is not only wise but imperative. And that is how, like two passengers on a wobbly boat, W and I had learned to live with the turbulence.

As we stepped into May, we witnessed the Government of India (GOI) wilting to an illness that they had gravely underestimated. The reported cases continued to spike, and in a span of two months, Maharashtra became the worst hit state in India with over 30000 cases. At this juncture, a question popped up like an unwelcome but inevitable guest: now that the paper is crushed, how do we save it from tearing? Another sore realization was the plight of those who just didn’t have enough to get by. They were citizens like you and me, who are often pulled together, de-identified and turned into statistics for literature, news, and most importantly, impact. From power cut to privatization, and demonetization to disease, they bear the first and the burliest blow of impact. They are the nameless ‘economically backward’. And spread between the sky outside my window and their brick less homes, is layers of cyclical oppression and lost opportunities. I will never be able to measure the height of the ivory tower I write this from. For believe me, I cannot fathom what life must be on the other side of the option with which I can ‘distance’ myself. On the 29th of April 2020, just before the GOI announced Lock-down 3.o (the third phase of the lock-down) the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that they would allow movement of migrants, pilgrims, tourists and students back to their home states.

This implied that I could, after all, go back home. But I was not thrilled. On the contrary, I was terrified of the possibility of facing the world square in the face. You see, in the past two months, W and I had made peace with the fact that things are no longer in our (or any one person’s control). Between the two of us, we had equally divided our responsibilities. The less forgetful one would go out and the other one would stay indoors to reduce the risk of doubly exposing ourselves. I am assuming by now you know that that meant I was the one who hadn’t seen another human face for two months. Considering movement of migrant population to their home states meant that things were headed for the worse- not only logistically but also conceptually. It meant that the GOI no longer knew when and if a ‘normal’ could ever be restored. This also meant that the state governments were now relayed the baton of control. Therefore, migrant workers, tourists and students like me were eagerly looking for answers on State Government websites. While some states were more actively moving towards a resolution, others were not. My home state, Assam, fell into the first category. Talks began and within a day, multiple WhatsApp groups were created- stranded students from the same college, residents of Assam in Maharashtra, Assamese women in Maharashtra and so on.

Initially, we were told that a train would be arranged to carry all 500 students from Maharashtra to Assam. This meant a continuous journey spanning three days. The prospect came as a relief to few and an uneasy option to others like me. I had a few unanswered questions- What happens to social distancing on board? What kind of screening procedures do we follow prior to boarding? What happens to food in the train? How do you ensure safety of everyone on board for three days straight? Even if we reach Assam safely, what happens next? Are we equipped with facilities meant to cater to lakhs of people arriving from all parts of India?

Amidst the chaos, I was made aware of another issue. W’s state had not yet released a statement about movement of migrant workers and students. They were, perhaps with legitimate reason, requesting people to stay where they were if the situation was not gravely strenuous. As I got regular updates on possible modes of transport, W did not. And an uneasy feeling began lingering at the back of my mind, but I did not know what it was. Finally, in the first week of May, the Government of Assam announced that it could not arrange for trains. However, if private transport by road (buses and cars) were arranged, they would provide a ‘pass’ for travel and monetary compensation. This meant a 5 day travel with the required resting time. The morning after the announcement, my inbox was flooded with messages from groups that were willing to pay any amount to return home. Some of them asked me for contacts of travel agencies, others decided to settle on private cars. However, still now, the same questions remained unanswered. If not worse, a group of 20-something students taking a bus from Mumbai to Assam could be as bad as a train with 500 people.

I called my parents and expressed my reservations with the rush. I asked them to be patient, assuring them that I was safer than I would be if I were to travel without knowing what I was getting into. We went to sleep that night joking about how it would at least be weeks before we reached a solution. The next evening, my father watched in horror as his social media was flooded with images of dead bodies of COVID-19 patients in the corridor of a Mumbai hospital. The same evening, for the first time in years, he decided for me and booked a seat on a bus headed to Assam from Mumbai. Before I knew it, I was added on a WhatsApp group with nineteen other people- of families and students working and studying in Mumbai respectively. I was then informed that we would be leaving in two days. While I attended multiple phone calls from my family and ‘group leaders’ of the group I would be travelling with, I was the most scared I had ever been during the lock-down. Unaware of the progress, W was on a call in the other room. I kept my phone aside, and took a while to let everything sink in.

I did not like Mumbai very much in the beginning, you know. I kept comparing it to Delhi; almost dreading that loving the former would take away from the latter. And there I was, aware that I might not be back for many months and suddenly, I knew what the uneasy feeling was. I was guilty AND grieving. I was guilty of leaving the man, who saved me from harm and hurt, isolation and internal frenzy and escaping at the first chance I got. I did not want to imagine the crippling quietness that could follow and I did know what to do about it. I was grieving the possible loss of a city that I was growing fond of, and the many quiet nights I spent laughing with friends. Like I have said before, I believe in Ellis when he says that one makes an emotional problem out of a practical one. And I still consider myself a largely reasonable woman. But for the second time since my life changed, I cried. And I sobbingly thanked the man, and the city that saved me.

To be continued…