Thanks for starting this thread, Udhay. As someone who has been interested in financial inclusion and would like to see India become a developed country in my lifetime, our country's callous handling of the pandemic has driven me to anger, grief and sadness. The news of people dying from lack of oxygen concentrators, delayed treatment etc has been cause for acute anxiety and depression. The ray of hope in all this darkness has been how individuals have rallied and organized themselves to provide food, medicines and other supplies. Even as I see homelessness and despair grow in the streets around me, I also saw people bringing food packets in scooters and cars and selflessly delivering it to the homeless. Ultimately, this is a role that the state should do. This is what we as taxpayers pay the state to do and to see the state absent here is to realise how far we need to go to develop world class governance capabilities.
I am a happy introvert but this pandemic has been hard, even for me. I know it must be ten times harder for my friends who are extroverts. Based on the vaccine procurement and rollout, my rough estimate is that we will emerge from this pandemic only by the end of 2022. If it happens earlier, I will consider it a bonus. I have managed to cope by: 1. Slowing down my life. I quit an earlier job which was a thankless task that consumed my days and nights and weekends too, and took on a consulting role that gives me more work-life balance. It is less pay, but I decided that it is what makes me happy. 2. Catching up on my reading 3. Music. I bought the Harman Kardon Soundsticks 4 and love listening to blues, jazz, ghazals and all other kinds of music on it. 4. Exercise. After years, I have been regular with exercise and it has been a great morale booster. 5. Catching up with friends over a walk. This has been my biggest mode of socializing during the pandemic. We walk wearing masks and we take great care to follow Covid appropriate behavior. I could write more but have to get back to work :-) Venky On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 11:10 AM Radhika, Y. <radhik...@gmail.com> wrote: > I was in Zaragoza, in the province of Aragón, Spain from January to June > 2020. About 7 weeks into my stay, the government declared a state of > emergency, the borders closed and the country hunkered down in what was > called "the first confinement". I was living alone already in my friend's > apartment on the 9th floor of a building that faced the river Ebro so I > continued there. At the time there were a lot of people exercising at home > - some ran marathons within the confines of their homes. My own feeling was > that I had entered true randomness and timelessness. I lost interest in > food using it only to maintain myself...really, my senses were not their > usual selves. There were unknown birds I saw in flight, there were the > leaves shimmering on the poplars along the riverbank. In the kitchen I > heard songs and chatter on the radio while I cooked. A window in the > kitchen looked down into the donut hole of the courtyard in the center of > the building. From this window I reached out to hang clothes on the > clothesline. Sometimes I heard a neighbor two floors down ordering her son > about. Other times, a neighbor, appropriately named Ángeles, would lean out > the window right across from me and ask me if I needed a mask or anything > else. Once the breakfast was prepared I took it over to the living room and > watched the sky and tried to note the changes in the kinds of clouds that > appeared - one blue, blue, blue sky day there was a summer cloud so fluffy > and light you knew no water could stay up there and all the water there > welled up in my eyes instead through magical transference. In the > afternoons, I lay on the bed that had an ornate headboard. From there I > could look into the kitchen waking up one night to see a dazzling flash of > lightning land on the kitchen floor. I could die and people wouldn't know > about it for a while. This thought came to me very quietly, with no fanfare > and not even self-pity. It really was possible; anything was and always is. > Sometimes in the afternoon, I visited the bookshelves in two separate > rooms. There were mostly books that were my friend's dead husband's choice: > lovely art catalogues and books on painting, Dosteovsky and Tolstoy in > Spanish, the work of many others I won't ever know. One book I came back > with is a small book on the weather and climate of the region. I've > translated it since. In the evenings, the 8pm singing and dancing in the > Juliette balconies lasted about 15 minutes. Most of the time only the birds > and animals heard us. Sometimes, police cars passed us and would stop and > applaud us. Once, an ambulance stopped and I played the ukulele, although > not the song that ruled the waves those few months - Resistiré (I will > resist). I prefered the Beatles. When night fell, I spoke to my husband and > son in Canada but there was something missing there. I could not explain > how I felt and the constant need to stay optimistic wore me out. I was a > 52-year-old woman who had gotten a second career as a translator and coming > to Spain was expensive, and at cost to my then 10-year-old son. In May, he > informed me timidly that in the summer he would need two parents to be with > him in Vancouver. There was a ringing in my whole body, there had been one > since the travel agent had called and said on March 12th, "I can't get you > out of Europe." I wasn't sure if I was in a war zone and what if anything > to think of my life before and after. At the same time, the present seemed > so precious, a pause and reset but with ragged edges. The losses came > later. Later in the year, I lost a brother-in-law and saw the same shadow > of illness/depression fall on many, many friends in India although this > year has truly topped all of those losses in terms of how many people were > sick. I still avoid talking (writing is much less invasive) about this > experience because...well, because when I do I'm back in that apartment > looking at the Las Meninas replicas in plaster looking back at me. Not that > I don't think about that apartment - many times I go back there but it's > not in response to conversation. It's not even that I was grieving in that > space, I was only coping. But it was a way of being without a way out. > > I'm sorry about not having addressed specific questions about grief or > loss. > > Radhika > > > On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 7:23 PM Udhay Shankar N <ud...@pobox.com> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 7:37 AM Deepa Mohan <mohande...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > We all need the human touch, both figurative and physically. The lack of > > > Vitamin T is a serious lack. > > > > > > > As I have said elsewhere, when straight Indian men start saying (I have > > multiple data points over the last year) that they miss hugging people, > you > > know something serious is going on. > > > > Udhay > > > > -- > > > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > > > > -- > *Translator/Owner* > *AzulIndica Translations* > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* >
