A little more than a week ago, I had friends over at my place in Chennai. The kind who’d say they’d stay for an hour and instead leave only at 3AM. At some point in the night we began to play the millennial version of UNO — throwing a draw 2 over a draw 2 and picking up seven cards if you forget to say UNO. Despite the serious constraints put on energy levels by our age, we decided to crack open a bottle of something and kept on dealing new rounds of cards. I commented then that a week later I’d be sitting alone in a quarantine facility in a foreign country. And likely hating it.
Today, I sit at a desk staring out of a rectangular window at tall, greying buildings somewhere in New Taipei City, and over a terrace which I can very easily access but absolutely should not. At present, me and the security guard on the terrace are just making eyes at each other. A 13-page document on my desk tells me everything I can do which is basically very little and everything I should not do which is the whole 13 pages. In short, I will get fined — and how! — if I attempt a prison break. At the end of every forbidden action, I am repeatedly reminded that the security group looking after this facility “cares about you!” So, I guess, I keep it that way?
It is gloomy outside. Sort of like a dull wintery day where everything is brushed over by an annoying shade of grey. The two palm trees in my line of vision haven’t stirred all day and as the sun goes down, little yellow lights appear randomly across different apartments. Till then I truly suspected not a soul lived inside those grey buildings.
I have spent the day doing two things. First, allowing my body to recover from the shock of transporting it very far away from the familiarity of my Chennai apartment. Second, Insta stalking an influencer who appears to have flown to the US at the same time I flew East. The difference is she has had to undergo zero quarantine requirements. Unlike me, who was hosed down by disinfectant at the airport, she appears to have seamlessly transitioned from ‘chic airport look’ to ‘cutie sipping on a delicious-looking cocktail’ and indulging in ‘#couplegoals’ at Central Park.
Meanwhile, I live in a simulated Squid Game where the sound I hear most is someone squirting disinfectant just outside my door. My forced routine begins at 7AM when a security announcement alerts me to the prospect of breakfast. The announcements in Chinese and English tell me to wear my mask, open the door, pick up my food, close the door, enjoy my breakfast, while knowing the security group cares about me. At 8AM and 3PM I report my temperature and oxygen saturation levels on a Google Doc and if I forget, my intercom rings and a kind lady reminds me. Lunch is served a little before noon, dinner at 5.30PM and my garbage is collected strictly in a ten-minute window during the day.
I have felt like SRK from Swades many times in the past few days. I have fondly recollected specific nooks of my Chennai home like he does of his village home in Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera. Frankly, I had spent so much time in that apartment through the pandemic that I had had enough yet found myself pausing to thank the walls before I left for the airport. Mostly for protecting me from what essentially has been a life-altering scenario that had gripped the whole world.
Here at the quarantine facility, we are all collectively going through exactly the same thing, but strictly have to go through it alone. There are worlds within these walls that are impenetrable for a fortnight where me, my routine, my untidiness, is witness to no one but the ceiling/sky above. And maybe that baby lizard that scurried away from me last night. I mean it is much like lockdown if you lived alone. Two mornings ago, I waved at my neighbour when we picked up our lunch off the chairs placed outside each of our rooms. We went back into our rooms and joined virtual communities deciphering what meat has been served to us for the day and whether we feel like eating it or not.
“Is it seafood?”
“This is vegetarian”
“Maybe non veg”
“Looking like chicken or fish fry”
“Remove skin, first…”
“Yes, I removed. It was chicken.”
What we are living through is a culmination of the year we have all had! In some ways it has been profound, in some others ways extremely vacuous. I have looked to complete strangers on dating apps for validation, comfort, approval, only to conclude it is a giant vat of bullshit. But like a friend texted me: it has been a complicated, fabulous, weird year that could not have been if it wasn’t for the myriad humans in each of our circles who looked out for us in their own specific ways.
When I return home from this adventure, two sets of couples who I have relied on to get me through the pandemic would have moved away, two other friends gone off to study, another would have gotten married and shifted base. And I haven’t even mentioned those who have already gotten away! These were normal occurrences before the pandemic- people off to pursue their dreams and goals- yet it feels like a strange betrayal now.
It is as if they owe me, and our friendship a pause from pursuing their lives, they owe me a stability that I am entitled to feel upon my return since I had gotten so used to their comfort in ways that I can’t even fully explain. But what I feel most is gratitude that for an intense 20 months of my life spanning a pandemic that has had devastating effects on the world, I had my circle of comforting humans, who’d give virtual warm hugs whatever time of day it was. And they continue to do so even when I am stuck in quarantine in a foreign country.
For that I am thankful, and much humbler as a human.
(Silly PS: I am considering hacking into security announcement and plugging in BSB’s EVERYBODY, ROCK YOUR BODY song and launch my BSBxYOGA Cult! Yes, this is a cry for help!)
