Confessions of a Bystander

                               Confessions of a Bystander

As I write these lines, our area has been declared a containment zone. The Government seems to have finally woken up to the fact that the (Un)Lock Whatever.0 is not working. For someone who’s been a bystander thus far, the threat -  finally  - seems real.

2020 started off with the usual bout of resolutions that kicked off in the first couple of fortnights in January, stood firm ground in the beginning of February and inevitably withered come March. When my employer declared WFH in mid-March as a precaution, the feeling was of curiosity, with – I confess – mild excitement. What was this virus – that forced organisations to take a view that its employees could work from home?

The crisis somehow seemed to circumvent India – was it our good karma? As the pandemic stepped out of China and rattled Europe and the USA, I, was a curious bystander. I devoured movies like “The Contagion”, “I Am Legend” and the home-made “Virus”. I was educating myself watching movies -while scenes from these movies played out in the western world, right from sudden sickness to mass graves.

“Worldometer” showcased the number of cases everyday and built graphs and charts that tickled my average numbers orientation. It’s ironical that data reduces human pain and loss to numbers.  Panel discussions on national television indicated a  “sluggish” world economy and an impending recession. I was a student embroiled in the toils of earning a degree back in 2008-09 and didn’t even realise the repercussions of a recession then. This time I thought – and I confess – that I’d probably understand what one is.

The Virus seemed more real and gained the status of a national enemy once all of us walked the streets, clapping our hands and creating makeshift drums with our plates and spoons. We were saluting our health warriors. Our leaders felt it was an opportune moment to stir up our lately-not-so-latent-jingoism. Almost a bystander even that day, I took the high ground of a hard to impress critic, stating “It may keep our spirits high. The country needs this at the moment”. I stood in the middle of the road, clicked a picture and wrote a Poem, saying the Virus was teaching us “How to Live” I propelled myself – I confess – to an exalted position trying to decode the intellect of the Virus and its intentions for human kind.

And then we were locked down. Forty days. Forty days where traffic disappeared from the streets, maids disappeared from our homes, long lost board games became mainstream and online collaboration became what everyone started calling the “New Normal”. The cases seem to surge on paper and on TV. Yet strangely, everything in the vicinity seemed normal. We bought our vegetables, cooked, ate, cleaned, worked, played and slept. I was audacious enough to say “I’m doing good. Everything ok around here. Just that being cooped up at home isn’t a great feeling” on every other call. I was – still – the bystander.

Pictures and reports came in about lakhs of guest workers being displaced from our cities – trundling back home on foot, cycles and whatever means they could find. For the first time – I confess - I was beginning to understand a huge layer of our society and their means to livelihood. We called our maid. She was back in her village, safe for the moment. We transferred her a couple of months of salary in advance – and thought our job was done. I took a silent pledge to donate a small portion of my salary till the country tides through this – and thought my job was done. Are food and money going to solve all problems – I wondered. But then, without food and money, would you be able to think of other problems, another thought countered.

In a country where thousands of white collar companions of mine were rendered redundant and hundreds of thousands of those in the unorganised sector found themselves trashed,  - I confess – that a part of me was relieved that I still had a job and almost cribbed that I wouldn’t be getting a pay raise this year.  Customers started putting projects on hold and delayed their payments – and that ironically, was my first taste of reality, apart from the fact that I wasn’t able to order from Swiggy or Amazon in the last couple of months.

News houses portrayed a catastrophe when the numbers surged in the hundreds and accepted reality when we hit thousands. Numbers were now a fatigue as much as – I confess - online calls. The Virus was still far away. I would always be sympathetic to what was happening elsewhere. But my home and locality would be an island and I would always be a bystander  - willing to engage if I was dragged into the battle, but happy to watch it from the sidelines for as long as it took.

Then the great Unlock happened. Masses took to the streets – first in a trickle and then in a flood. I took my first walk in the park in months and had to post it on Instagram- I confess - for validation. The Garden City would soon be on its course. I went out and met relatives. Ran a few errands for home and even ordered Pizza in a crude celebration!

And all this while, the Virus slowly crept in to our backyard. It could have been an innocent citizen, a belligerent health warrior, an adventurous rogue or a simpleton bystander (like me!) – fact remains that parts of our neighbourhood are now contagious.

Scenarios that played out in other cities and countries – I confess – seem to now have a more realistic chance of replicating themselves in front of our own eyes.  The streak of curiosity and the screen of sympathy are slowly being replaced with a sense of foreboding with a slice of fear. Fear for one’s own self and fear for one’s kin. Fear of knowing that it’s now so real – it’s only a matter of time before you hear one of your own battling the unseen enemy.

And in between the three days I took compile these musings – Mother has switched to Bigbasket, after rumours that the neighbourhood supermarket was frequented by someone who tested positive; we successfully dissuaded father from attending an office lunch as Mother tried a new recipe from Youtube; I experimented working out on-line; My brother and I have cribbed about the possibility of sharing the same room for work for at least another three months. However, the government seems to have rolled back on its decision to make our locality a containment zone!

Emotions journey through cycles of fear, resilience, hope and optimism. The dichotomy between the practicality of being careful bordering on being obsessive with hygiene and social distancing and the philosophy that there are certain things we may never be able to address and control, still persists. And then the (sur)reality that the island might have grown smaller – but we are still on one. The Audacity to still proclaim that’s its out there, but still not in here. And that selfish yearning – I confess – to forever remain a Bystander.  

                                                                                         - 27th June 2020

*Photo By Andrew Neel on Unsplash.com