As I close my eyes to go back to sleep for the third time today, I envision a frozen year with only screens and distance. Miles away from home, I envision my parents in our garden, sipping on their chai occasionally while in the middle of an argument. Maa just won’t let dad out of the house, his impatience can kiss the sand. My promise to them, the promise of sanitizing my hands a million times lingers at the back of my mind, just when my phone rings. It’s the ringtone that smells of Coronavirus, someone ringed me on Zoom. Argh! It’s time for the edit-meet. We start our dailies from tomorrow.
Just so you know, this time I am quite excited about my story. I still have tonnes of quotes that I couldn’t submit with the first draft. Submitting stories while on the edge of the deadline never worked for me anyway. To add to my misery, we had a power cut right after. This was no ordinary power cut. It lasted for 18 hours. Looks, like, the BESCOM zonal office didn’t have a clue about our situation, until we decided to call at the penultimate hour. But that’s not what makes the power cut extraordinary, what happened due to it does. We’re currently six people living in a villa, near Panathur, and for the first time in a really long time, we sat in the balcony and spoke to each other. We spoke of our happy and glam, our glitches and qualms. I got to know how stars are actually an image of the past. We played a few board games too.
This lockdown is really making us rethink life, I feel. Once this is over, I am never again taking a can of Fanta, a ride to the mall, a hug or even a walk to the nearest grocery store for granted again. I had to move in with my boyfriend; I couldn’t go home. I am discovering a new trait of his every day. Feels like he’s new. Perhaps at home, life would have been different, but right now I am grateful.
