Lockdown hangover

Ten weeks is a long time on any calendar. It witnesses a change in length of the day, season, food and diet, clothes, sometimes even style of working. Come to think of it, it is longer than the life span of a few thousand creatures on our planet. No wonder, the lockdown period has spelled out the boundaries of human limitations, changing the meanings of common words like normal, office, social life, entertainment, even health and wealth, knocking our lives for a six like no war, political turmoil or social revolution could ever do.

The time has brought about an earthquake-like change in our lives. Now as the end of lockdown (sadly though, not Covid infections yet as we see or even as say the soothsayers) comes close, the dimmer goes the light at the end of my tunnel.

I confess that even while living a cocooned house-bound life I have missed out on a few simple pleasures of life during the shutdown period.

Grocery: A necessity-driven shopper by nature, I miss my once a month visits to the grocery store for a detailed survey and relaxed search for the articles I need. All stocked up food items disappeared from my kitchen and containers got empty. So stressed was I that I spent several hours trying to decide whether to make butter cookies/cake or a friend or ghee for us with the only 500 gm white butter that was available during the lockdown.

After the first few days of confusion following the announcement of the lockdown, a bread and milk seller started coming to our building. His prices were not very favourable and choice always restricted, but it was very convenient as there is no market less than a kilometer from our abode. 

Will the new constant refrain be – you were living without it during the lockdown. Why can’t you do so now?

Friends: Missed meeting and visiting some close friends in and out of town. Lockdown has tested friends not by the messages they sent or calls they made but how many times they used their curfew pass to bring wine or whisky bottles or took you out for an errand in their car.

Video chats, phone calls, and game nights could not effectively substitute hugs and conversation over shared meals.

Following a structured routine Lily’s usual time of calling me was her homeward drive from office in the evenings. Like in the case of many others, the baker in her too bloomed during this break and she was busy baking caramel custard and banana walnut bundt cake.

Eating out: I have longed for golgappe, sadak chhap poori aloo, (street food), boti kebab. To me home-cooking is overrated. Neither is everyone interested in cooking nor is everyone a great cook. But pandering to the varied food demands of members of the family sitting at home whose source of entertainment was also the next meal, has been tiring.

Yet why did nobody talk of failed recipes during the lockdown? Is it believable that everyone’s cake rose like Bartolo (Buddy) Valastro’s or rasmalai and samosas could compete with what the local shops sell? 

Activities:  It has been a unique social experiment where people have learnt new skills studied, read, listened to audio books, enjoyed their hobbies, decluttered their wardrobes, exercised, baked cakes, tried out new recipes, binge watched TV or Netflix whatever it was. Maybe it was therapeutic. People have thrived at this slower social pace, have had time to think and be creative.

Will they continue with some of these activities or they were indulged in merely to somehow let this time pass?

Noise: I do not miss the noise of traffic, but do miss the quiet early mornings unlike now when I am forced to listen to announcements and an out of tune song played several hours a day from the PA system on the roundabout near  our house.

If somebody driving on the road is listening to Corona ditties on the PA system, is he a safe driver?

Living: The Lockdown has hit all kinds of working classes in various fields and businesses and their owners, changed our lifestyles, made us value some things and people we had taken for granted. At the same time, it has clearly spelt out the redundancy and uselessness of hundred other things in our life.

 

Will we still dabble in the redundant or engage the useless?

 

Lockdown goes: I might be doing my best to help myself and the others by staying home and staying safe but this lockdown is not going to last forever. Slowly life would be expected to go back to whatever little is left of normal.

 

Thus, while others may go in for a lockdown detox as soon as the restrictions are lifted, I have already started feeling symptoms of what can best be described as lockdown withdrawal. I feel the going of this time like sand slipping from my fingers.

Do we know what the new normal would be three months from now?

 

For the ambivert in me, this lockdown period was the perfect escape from unnecessary and unwanted social interactions. My nervous system is not programmed for on a full time interaction regime. It needs recharging in my own company after a bout of socialising.

Ah! So much rumination and I am still not clear whether I agree with Phil Collins when he sang - “I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life”. 

Goodbye to video chatting:  All of us are yearning to be with the people we love and care for– but cannot travel to meet. 

But after a couple of Zoom and Google Hangout meetings with family and a couple of friends, I realized it was exhausting. Even while in a group, I find a smaller bunch or one or two people for a kind of conversation on the side, move to the other end of the room, or listen to the others without adding any input. My friends and their children working from home through online meetings and Zoom complain that they are exhausted because now there is no cut-off to working hours.

Media onslaught: With the lockdown slowly phasing out, maybe the media would have other things to talk about besides the unending talk of rising infection figures and failures or success of the governments, told and untold tales of misery, which generate in me the fear of Covid coming closer and closer without any fault of my own.

Will the news look like news at all without any Covid-talk?

Living: People I know have struggled with uncertain exam schedules, children’s classes or just keeping them busy, or working from home under demanding conditions. While some searched for things to do, many others yearned for time to close eyes and mind to this onslaught of expectations.

Social interaction: Even though I will have to change and make myself presentable while going out, because of social distancing there is no pressure to participate in social get-togethers and opting out would cause no guilt.

Will the intimate scenes in movies disappear, giving way to flowers winding around each other on the screen and some familiar or unfamiliar music playing in the background?

Clean nature: The clear blue skies without the smog, lush green tops of the gulmohar trees in front of our residential complex rekindled in me the memories of my Grottaferrata, on the outskirts of Rome, visit way back in 1997.

Now when people start moving around, will my narrow spinach bed survive the greedy eyes and stealthy hands of passersby?

Eating out: And even though I admit I never feel guilty about eating out, the thought of all the restaurants and bars opening dampens my spirits. It is not purely hygiene related though.

If you are wondering why I should be worried, it is the typical story. The builder of our residential complex went bankrupt and before making his great escape, tried to cover some of the financial gap by selling the belly of the ground floor meant for club house to restaurants and bars. Their kitchen and bathrooms are under our apartments. Every day at 10.00 am would start my olfactory torture. Worried if I had left something on the stove, I’d make several trips to the kitchen. The smells emanating from the ground floor areas would perhaps be from some aromatic food but in my apartment it raised nothing but a stink. Sometimes, however, if I was in a generous mood, I did try to identify the dish (chhole, stuffed parathe, chicken kadai?) being cooked from the smell pervading my bathroom. The steel katoris (bowls) in my kitchen played a rhythm with the whirring of the outdoor units of their split air conditioners behind our flat. The deafening music playing way beyond the permissible hours from Tuesday to Sunday nights made me recite Vishnu Sahatranaam every night till my mind went numb. (My grandmother had told us kids if you chant God’s name, the demons feel challenged and make you go to sleep.) 

One morning a few months ago as we were stepping out, we noticed smoke billowing into our bathrooms. The black clouds and the stench were scary. As I ran to call the security boy, my sandals slipping grip on the floor in fright, I saw him standing calmly, rubbing tobacco and lime in his palm. Koyi danger nahin ‘…’ mein aag lag gayi hai. Fair birgett bula lee hai. (There is no danger at all. There is a fire in ‘…’ restaurant. The fire brigade has been called). His composed face made me break into a sweat; I locked the house and ran so that if it explodes, I’d better be not in it. Of course, they have LPG cylinders and liquor bottles in there.

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