Saturday, 21st March 2020, 10:30 am: I packed 2 haversacks, wiped down the kitchen, hung some washed clothes on the line, closed all the windows, switched off the gas main and the internet and took one final look around the house in Mumbai. The saxophone case stood upright in a corner of the room. “Take it next week” I remember thinking. Still without a mask and covering my face with a handkerchief, I entered a largely empty train. I distinctly recall tensing up when a person sitting opposite me coughed slightly, but made no effort to find another seat. Dadar was quiet, too quiet for a Saturday and one reason for this was the fact that interstate MSRTC bus services had been suspended the previous day. As always, I’d had no idea and my timing remained exemplary. The Mumbai-Pune taxi rank was empty, every last moth-eaten, rust bucket of a car on its way out of the city by then. Having no choice, I negotiated the fare for the last seat in an Indica. 20 minutes later, the cab was out of the city.
On Sunday, interstate travel from and to Mumbai was stopped completely.
The following Tuesday evening at 8pm, the PM announced a 3-week countrywide lockdown. At our grocery store, panic-buying had already ensued but I managed to get some basic provisions to tide us over for a week.
Thursday, 10th September 2020, 12:45pm: Hoisting a haversack, I walked into the house in Mumbai. I’d imagined this moment a few times in the previous months and what I’d do immediately after. A pot of black coffee, a smoke and maybe a quiet cry, basically. Instead, I opened the windows, turned on the taps and took a look around. Mundane but necessary, I guess. The house needed a thorough sweep, although the dust situation wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Stale food was discarded. Musty clothes and linen were washed and dried. Finally, in the late afternoon the coffee was brewed and I sat down on the couch in the dark, silent living room, savouring every sip; a ritual that had been integral to countless previous weekends. But, this was different.
It's only been 6 months away but it felt like a lifetime. All day, I walked around trying to shake off the thought that I was in someone else's home. The bed, the coffee and even the clothes; were they really mine? Melancholy settled on my heart like a boulder. The weight of these past months, my finances guy giving short shrift to my “I’m thinking of quitting, taking a short break and then considering options” line of thought, inability to get away from work shenanigans for even 1 week of vacation (I received an office call EVERY DAY) and a suicidal incapacity to accept the status quo... whether I lack fortitude or not, it was overwhelming.
The man who'd lived in this house from the age of 30 and the 37 year old now staring at himself in the mirror were not the same person. Somewhere, somehow, I had disconnected from a life of monotonous office commutes and dazed weekends. So many elements that were just part of that life, circumstances to be digested without thought or protest, now stuck in my craw. Views from the window, sounds, weather, the idea of company, even family; it has undergone a slight metamorphosis. In a reversal of Kafka’s Gregor Samsa situation, I was changing from a bug to a person.
I like looking out the window and seeing greenery rather than the wall of the next building. I like hearing the chirping of birds during the day and crickets at night, not the loud, protesting rattles of cutlery being washed. I like dry weather, bright blue sky and cool breezes, as opposed to... well, you get the idea. It’s nice to know someone is awaiting me at mealtime every day. I may not want to talk to a lot of people but having a friend drop by for a few beers and breeze-shooting every week? Yea, I’ve signed up for that.
SPACE, man. I really revel in being able to walk in my society, day or night.
Where is this going? Honestly, who knows. I’d previously described a feeling called ‘travel ennui’ and written about it many times. Perhaps it's a fancy term for Separation Anxiety – no matter how sordid the routine, breaking away from it feels wrong. Remember what happened to Brooks in the Shawshank Redemption? It’s dangerous because many of us develop a blind-spot towards our day-to-day existence. Of course there must be millions of people who accept change with good grace and aplomb and well done them. There probably are many more who, especially now, are going through the motions, aware of their misery and unable or unwilling to do anything about it, wary that the change could trigger something worse. I am one of the latter.
Whether we like it or not, change is coming. Rather, it’s already here affecting every aspect of our lives. We hanker to go back to normal but maybe life as we know it is over. Even if a vaccine is successfully developed, we’d be immune to the current expression of the virus, no? Very much like us, the virus will change and then what? Another lockdown? Or, as a friend theorised, will we carry on living albeit with precautions (which is not the same as before)?
If life as we know it has changed fundamentally, how much of everything we know and do – our learned rules of thinking and acting – needs to alter? What was considered savvy or prudent before may no longer be. It seems like a problem and an opportunity. What is one to do?
Song for the moment: Driver's Seat - Sniff 'n' The Tears
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