Pandemic Diary: Part I - Back to Friends, Biryani, and Chai!

Lockdown diaries are a dime a dozen, so I’ve scrawled up a bunch of post-lockdown diarological impulses as we move through this deadly nightmare. I hope we all make a smooth transition to life after the pandemic. It's time to rouse from this deleterious moment of our lives.

The diary entries are as follows:

No Friends, No Biryani:

W.H.O. (world health organization) has officially declared COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) viral disease a public health emergency of international concern. God bless us all.

The Pandemic brought many gifts in our lives: For the first time in decades, I cherished forlorn streets and desolate roads in my neighbourhood as I sauntered past, masked up and sanitised for protection, the familiar buildings and gullies, and shops to buy essential household groceries from a nearby supermarket. The streets were strangely quiet, peacefully bereft of traffic din. Even gully dogs and cats were unable to make their presence felt. Mosquitoes? They're up and busily about, as is their wont, raising bumps on the skin!

- Sunday, 29 March 2020

No friends and no bonding over biryani (or chai pe charcha) is unthinkable to people in this part of the subcontinent. Dum-cooked Hyderabadi chicken biryani is a global food craze. My US-, UK-returned friends pull my leg for being still a biryani-loving gent having a stereotypical taste palette who refuses to let the whiff of other good food entice me. That is absolutely correct. I never get bored or tired of the quintessential biryani fare. “Kaiku bhayi? Chicha hamare ku bolte biryani-itch khana, toh hum biryani-itch khate ji. Aur kuch nakko khao!” So there you are!

We cancelled our plans to visit Bangalore (now Bengaluru) during the early onset of the monsoon season. Gone for a toss.

Summer vacation in Kolkata isn’t going to happen either. Visiting Tirupati in the winter appears unlikely.

I become a difficult person to be around if I don't get my fix of a hot aromatic plate of handi biryani! That is a proven fact. Nothing compares to the great Hyderabadi dum biryani cuisine in terms of taste and smell or aroma. Eating anything else would seem... sacrilegious.

Eerie pin-drop silence! Now I know silence speaks louder than voice; it’s deafening! Oh my goodness…! Absolutely no sound anywhere on the road. No traffic! No humans! No street dogs! It’s all so quiet - a séance-like space setting. Post-apocalyptic. Welcome to the new 'not' normal.

I'm glad to report that while in COVID-19 lockdown-induced melancholia, I learned to go slow. As the weeks turned into months, and months into a year, I realised I got ample time on my hands to reflect on myself, and if I could re-acquaint with a friend whom I had lost contact with several years ago, it would be an experience beyond words. I also couldn't forego the idea of experimenting with personal productivity regimes while teaching myself the value of family and relationships. I ate insatiably and read voraciously, as I am an avid reader.

I went to the supermarket a couple of buildings away today to get some 'essential items.' Nobody panicked, and there was no evidence of panic buying. Everyone was patient and calm.

Cleaner air and bright blue skies...

Days seem to last forever, and nights slip away far too quickly. Sitting on the balcony, nodding at our neighbours, and calling close friends and relatives seems to reassure us that life will return to normalcy soon.

I washed my hands with Dettol liquid soap for the nth time.

Just finished kneading Maida dough for making Luchees (Puris). Had Luchee Aaloor Torkari (Potato Curry) for breakfast today. Umm… Nice.

Tonight’s dinner will be paneer curry!

Feeling trapped inside our flat. Just waiting for the day when we can see sunny days and peachy smiles again. Getting accustomed to Zoom meetings is hard enough a task: online meetings make me feel discouraged and a little numb - this must be the fear and concern caused by Covid-19’s alarming spread and severity.

Maybe, who knows, the outside world is overrated after all. And please, God, no Zoom parties! Go away, Coronavirus, just… fuck off.

- April to December 2020

Clever me for being born an Arian and not having the option to host a birthday party for the second year in a row! There were no picnics, movies, meet-ups, gatherings for Chicken Biryani. No outdoors, except for peeping out from balconies and generally lounging around the apartment steeped dunk in a self-pitying funk, all the time dreading my mobile phone buzz, which portended not good but mostly grim news. The nightmare that is this: CORONAVIRUS.

It’s been a pretty hard time that it is almost going stone insane. The Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection has massacred our lives and continues to haunt our dreams every moment. Thanks to the governmental incompetence, the boast of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas' has vanished into thin air, gone for a toss! Instead, we move hazardously close to obliteration. Not to mention the 'yeoman service' provided by unscrupulous private hospitals and clinics! It’s all so upsetting and shocking.

I washed my hands clean with Lifebuoy liquid soap for the third time in as many hours. Attention to hygiene, remember?

- Thursday, 28 October 2021

Insensitive Government:

The cost of inaction by the government, the present one which usually comes with a distinctly authoritarian bent, and whom we all voted to power, will result in more suffering and misery, and people are dying. Our motorists are terrified that petrol, diesel, and gasoline products are taxed steeply. The cost of a 14.2-kg cooking gas cylinder (Rs. 952.00/- as of Oct. 2021) had defeated the purpose of using it.

To shore up financial resources for the vaccination drive, the government of the day had to resort to such a thing! One of the dire effects of the ongoing global pandemic is being unable to find a moral justification for such a decision taken by the government. The "Emperor has no clothes" because he spent all his financial resources getting well dressed, and whatever he requires now can only be obtained by taxing the scapegoat aam janta!

Unfortunately, these days, the car, bike, and auto owners are feeling out of speed; there’s almost no fun left now in making sharp turns. The exhilaration of overtaking is achingly missing from the thrill of driving. Even the oh-so-familiar feeling of racing, going too fast, or misjudging when overtaking make these proud owners of dented vehicles nervous and even half regretful. Clocking hundreds of kilometres on those machines - manual or automatic, electronic or gas - seems such a drag! Poor fellas.

How can we forget those who died as a result of Covid-19 disease? Some wounds may never completely heal in this life.

- Friday, 29 October 2021

(…to be continued).

By Arindam Moulick

End of part 1 of 2