The harrowing exodus

I spent all of yesterday switching between making chivda, washing utensils, bingeing on the latest crime web series, 3 meetings on zoom and 2 WhatsApp video chats. I’ve rearranged furniture for the 5th time in these two months and I’ve struggled with sustaining my meditation and exercises on a regular basis. Time simply disappears into a black hole and the days go by in a blur. There is an undercurrent of anxiety at all times. Am I gaining time or losing time?

I count my blessings and I struggle with the guilt of being privileged.

This morning, I woke up to these images and felt miserably small.

While I sit in my comfortable home and find enough and more to worry about, there are lakhs of migrant workers trekking across state lines, hitching truck rides, counting their last rupee. Their desperation is palpable. They have no way of knowing which police patrol will turn out to be a god send and show them compassion or which one will beat them up for walking along the highway and not following lockdown rules. The migrants have in tow young children, who are hungry, weary and unable to comprehend why they are being dragged across such long distances. The sweltering heat, the sweat, the endless roads with no end in sight and all of them anxiously praying for some respite.

Imagine the anger and helplessness on being refused entry at the border after this harrowing journey. No money, no water, no food, blistered feet, exhausted, emotionally spent and on the verge of collapse. Pawns in the hands of the government; deprived of their basic right to human dignity and freedom, it is a desolate and bleak landscape.

The most neglected, ignored, unseen segment of society is today the cynosure of all eyes but to what avail? If, as a society, we fail to acknowledge our responsibility towards them and don’t integrate them into our development plans … it will be our biggest failure yet. Not the virus, not the economy but this … our failure to revisit the fundamental building bricks of our society. For allowing them to crumble into dust without making the effort to save them and rehabilitate them.

Meanwhile, I get on with the chores of the day with these images forever seared into my being.

The Times of Pandemia

The loss of public figures who were adored and loved has amplified the collective grief we feel at this time as we mourn the loss of our freedom, the loss of a world as we knew it and the loss of friends and family who have retracted into a screen.

The barrage of news peddling fear and warning that spews out non stop from our screens adds to the underlying anxiety. It is not surprising that people are feeling a sense of confusion and loss of direction.

The initial days while filled with terror of this unknown enemy were also days of adapting to something new. The mind was processing this new normal. Six months have passed since and the new normal is now the normal. There is no going back. Too much mistrust and fear has crept in of the outdoors, the unknown-asymptomatic people, proximity, surfaces, crowds, public travel, a common cold … everything is up for assessment.

The lockdown has stripped away the veneer of pretend working, the hyper responses and the fake news. Old forgotten talents and hobbies have resurfaced, meditation and yoga and home exercises, new recipes and experimental cooking, following a routine, designer masks, communication … everyone is finding their outlet.

Today, there is gratitude for having a home and the resources to stay safe on one hand and there is the inescapability of self and the strains and stresses of malfunctioning relationships. The old days of chasing goals, money, status … it’s been taken away. It’s a hiatus from the frenzied living and it is making many, uncomfortable. In this heaving, sighing collective connectedness … there is just today. Real, uncompromising, present. Today.