The unlocking has begun and everything and everyone seems ready to get rolling into the ‘new normal’. But there is a problem, after months of keeping touch with relatives and friends over WhatsApp messages and thumbs up emojis and being left to our devices, I have no idea what to do outside my home anymore. It seems that I will never be able to make an intelligent conversation with anyone going forward.
Strangely, the thing with captivity is that once you get comfortable with it, you start calling it the “new normal“.
So, amidst the new rules, policies, reports, experiences, tweets, research and theories surrounding the virus unlocking begins and there is an aura of short lived positivity in the air. Your heart and mind are in a constant struggle due to thoughts arising from seeing Instagram stories, Facebook posts, WhatsApp statuses from your friends and few of relatives making you wonder whether its the right time to leave the house.
Then on one fine day after much deliberation and long winded arguments with your inner-self, you step out armed with sanitizers, masks, and a fluttering heart to a world that isn’t the same anymore. You try to fill yourself up with the confidence that got evaporated since the ‘Janta Curfew’ and you constantly remind yourself , “I have been inside enough. I need to go out now ! Everyone is heading out, its all right “. The scary Covid theories strike back and you settle on going for a ride in your car to witness the unknown.
The cafes, the malls, the roads, the restaurants which would give you a happy headache with loud laughter, now resemble abandoned cities and civilizations. You can almost hear sad violin tune playing in the background as tears run down your eyes and you think about the old normal and wonder what all you could have been doing if the pandemic wasn’t a spoilsport. Perplexingly, local markets thronging with daredevils dressed like bank robbers in their masks on their chins and sunglasses don’t make you happy either. They make you nervous, fidgety and almost angry. Wearing ironed clothes is now a luxury just like hugging or shaking hands with your near dears. While outside your home, one moment you imagine boarding a flight or sipping your favorite tea on a train or road trip and one moment you are relaxing in the mountains, but at the end you imagine a fall back on the hospital bed with “Lets go back to home” being the only respite to this never ending situational anxiety messing up with your thoughts.
Has prolonged isolation robbed me of my ability to have a normal conversation again? Should I move to a cottage in the hills and prepare for a rest of life in solitude! Or should I distract myself from my inevitable fall to a sinkhole by watching all the movies, YouTube videos or TV Series possible and assuming that it will be ‘Work From Home’ forever?
How I wish I knew someone who has lived through a pandemic before and guided me through this mess or we could have an access to a Bible on how to survive this! Unfortunately there is nothing and with the amount of news, reports and research bring shared everyday, there seems to be no stopping to the butterflies in my stomach. The world has become a place I don’t recognize anymore. Damn, I don’t recognize myself anymore! All thanks to the extreme emotions, mental trauma, constant anxiety. Every throat niggle has me convinced I am about to breathe my last in an isolation ward.
I hate that Covid has shrunk my world, my experiences and turned me into a caged animal. Now I very well can relate to what it is actually like for a caged animal in a zoo.
I am fast running out of letters and patience. This is the new world where someone who’s just sneezed will be treated like an Untouchable. Raw veggies and meats are getting luxurious, detergent baths and food deliveries cause anxiety and not joy. To maintain my sanity I’m bracing for a transition that’ll be slow, a transition that will never get us back to a past we are longing for. So maybe you and I should accept it’s okay to be weird because nothing is normal anymore.
