The months that were: Of masks, social distancing and panic.

I’m running up the stairs with as much speed as I can humanly muster. Pandemic or no pandemic, I’m always a little late. I frantically ring the doorbell, my mother opens the door surprised to see me, I run past her, grab my mask and head down again. They say, do not step out without a mask. Well, it’s going to take a couple of years to get used to that.

We’re in the 5th month of the lockdown. Covid cases are exponentially rising with India becoming the third country to have the highest number surpassing Russia. With the ease of lockdown restrictions, we’ve become complacent, the initial fear slowly losing its intensity, replaced with dispassionate concerns. How long should one be careful? How much precaution is too much precaution? It’s almost like we’re gambling with our lives; leaving everything up to fate, a chance that we might be safe, that even though the virus is inching closer, it cannot touch us. Many might argue wearing masks is a pain, and I’d agree, it is. But I would also like to have more years to look forward to with my family in the pink of their health and I think I can sacrifice my comfort to be able to afford it.

The pandemic has shattered well-built structures, reducing them to redundancy. Schools have transformed overnight to digital platforms. I see my brother half-asleep in his pyjamas, hair dishevelled, barely sitting straight, scrambling to get ready to attend online classes. I wonder if the children retain anything. The stress of homework is exacerbated with getting used to technology. The students who are privileged with fully-functioning computers & access to an internet connection can be part of the ‘new normal’. What about others? If anything, the pandemic has exposed the huge class barrier prevalent in our education system.

Everyone has been left way worse than one could have imagined. I can’t help but laugh( it’s more of a helpless laughter) when I think of the mental plans I had made when the year started. ‘This year just feels right,’ I exclaimed, looking at my friends, drunk on the idea of making a mark. Here I am, trying to get through every day without completely losing it. Loss, seems to be the primary emotion. While I can’t compare this feeling to the thousands of lives lost due to the pandemic, there’s an immense sense of grief for all the things that could be. It’s a collective breaking down of who we were before the pandemic cast a shadow on our lives, and who we’re becoming, transitioning into strangers we can no longer recognise.

The world order, if there was any, has changed. Stepping out of the house requires a mental gymnastics of sorts which includes several layers of protective gear and requires the perseverance & indomitable will to tick off grocery lists. Most of my time is spent aimlessly scrolling through social media, getting infuriated by the government, spending hours trying to find the right mask, looking at various disinfectants, screaming at members of the family to be more cautious, giving in to my mom’s totkas of increasing immunity and questioning the purpose of all of the above activities.

I read the other day that ‘pandemic fatigue‘ is real. I am relieved there’s a name to this restlessness. I wake up tired, dragging myself to pretend to look forward to what the day has to offer. I am usually very excited to hit the bed but falling asleep is another game of hide & seek. It’s a vicious cycle. Things I love indulging in have started to become irritants; nudging and poking and demanding to be dealt with. For someone who heavily relies on social media for work, I seem to have taken a step back. The constant barrage of information, pictures & selfies finally took its toll. The only respite in the midst of a crashing-down-of-everything-I-believed-would-stand-concrete is burying my face in books. But something has shifted in the genre of books I pick up too. I no longer revel in dystopia because real life seems to uncannily resemble what I believed would be restricted to only fiction. I reach for books with a ‘happily ever after’ as its primary objective, actively reading books of hope, of family and anything that does not involve dying.

The venerable pandemic-induced question keeps knocking at the door: What is the point of anything? Was there ever a point? If the new social order looks like this, I wonder if years of feeding off of lies was worth it.