Pages from a control freak's quarantine diary

I read this lovely Francesca Melandri advisory to the UK from Italy here just about an hour ago and made some parallel notes in my diary. Adding and taking away and making some thoughts dance to my tunes through.

Given that in India we are in our nascent Covid testing and locking down in days, I thought I'd share this list with anyone. Narrow that anyone down a bit, I think this will be for any other 29 year old woman living in a comfortable home of her own making, preferably with someone she loves, hoping to make through this with lived experiences and words stitched to the last bit of paper left in the house.

This is day 23 of unofficial lockdown for my flatmate—my partner in life—and me. It's been a long and tiring month that just didn't seem to end when it began. We struggled through the partner's chicken pox, then bouts of fever and pox scare for me. Our cleaning lady and cook were with us through the first half of this, and we have trudged through the other half with one another.

All those fears and anxieties about being homebound are coming true, even for me, someone who prefers staying in over being out and about. As I was telling a friend yesterday on video call, I'd love for the option to hold close. The option of stepping out. But there's plenty more to ruminate and reminisce.

I am writing from Delhi, which means I am writing from the now. A now that is very dear to all of us. A now that we are looking very deeply to preserve in ways more than one, and in unique ways. Had it been November or even January, I'd have snootily said that I write from the future, since Delhi's smog problem will soon be the whole country's baby, but these are not the times to be snooty.

We are about a few weeks behind in our reaction, there's much trepidation, a lot of nerves trudged up and down, and very few confidences. Before I forget how I felt when it all began, what did it feel like to be losing control, day by day, I thought I'll put to words these very incongruous and highly volatile thoughts.

First off, to name it is tough. Quarantine Diaries seems the easiest nomenclature, but it's also a lot like coping out. So i'll try something more immediate, something more personal.

Pages from the diary of an anxious control freak under lockdown

This also merely scratches the surface, so I'll let this stay and move on to the next step. These are notes from an admitted self-surveillance of what it feels like to be locked down with a loved one. Wherein sometimes you will feel like you are living inside a Mani Ratnam movie, with what the love, the scarcity of resources, the bare walls, the surging emotions. On others, you will feel like you are inside an Anurag Kashyap movie, skies looming low streaked with dark crows, as you try to fix a broken life, centimetre by centimetre.

As we are all entwined in a simultaneous unraveling, several Groundhog Days happening all around us all the time, you will feel exposed, or uncared for at times what with the unstoppable parallel Twitter and Instagram and Zoom scrolling. A colleague was even scrolling through Skype the other day.

Being a woman, vulnerabilities just don't stop hitting you ever, do they? Walking to the grocery store, you will feel layers of some very strange yet old vulnerabilities. When you walk the deserted streets and fellow pedestrians include: stray dogs, crackling dry leaves that otherwise seem poetic, crows and pigeons diving too deep and low, almost till your eye-level, more stray dogs and groups of men. Men with their faces half covered, their eyes darting straight at you, while you clutch various shapes and weights of tote bags. As you balance a bag of potatoes on the verge of spilling, while trying to cover whatever cleavage is visible unknowingly, you feel that strange unreasonable fear of a man walking straight up at you. But they walk away, and you will feel that very commonplace, all too well known pang of relief.

You will feel the urge to watch all of Bojack Horseman all over again. But then you will tell yourself how bad an idea that is and watch something more gripping. You will find yourself wanting to return to Fleabag, but you will opt for Please Like Me thoughts. You will inadvertently develop a gallows humour, when the starkness of it all will strike you.

You will miss home, and that will make you revisit the movies in which they show your North Indian hometown. You will miss the idea of those confines, and you will find yourself wondering if those brutal confines were better than this pandemic. The immediate second you will scoff and move on.

You will promise more, much more than you can deliver. You will do longer video calls than ever.

You will miss the megalomaniac father — that's impossible — but you'll want to hear his voice. You've not spoken with him in a while, but only for a brief 18 seconds you will allow yourself to wallow in some self-hatred and miss him. Try and remember how his face looks. You will surprise yourself.

Amid the deadness, the seriousness, the pall of it all, you will seek humour. The looming shortfalls, the shortages, the catharsis, the anxiety attacks camouflaged as bursts of anger, the sea of unknown, will shift something inside your mysterious mind and you will find light in weird moments.

Neighbourhood markets and their dignified social distancing norms will take you by surprise. We were capable of not shoving an elbow at each other, after all. You will think about how it will all go away when this is over. You will miss the crowds. You are too Indian, too hypocritical, too middle-class, you will miss the labyrinthine nature of our otherwise very desi existence. You will miss the grime, the sweat and shoving in the Delhi metros. The metallic coolth of the AC in public spaces and the good smells, as you were always confined in small spaces which packed more people than the space was made for.

You will defy the allure to stay a day out in the bed, and leave for work. From the bedroom to the drawing room. You will relish in the new desk you purchased 8 months ago. It's usefulness, over its looks will fulfil you.

You will feverishly note down what all you do not have, but then you will also count what all you do have. Forever enslaved to to-do lists, you will prepare more and more of them, only to cross out items by merely understanding that they're not needed.

You will understand more about your inner circle, the real friends, the present ones over the performative ones. You will draw lines, you will protect yourself.

You will be taken by surprise by the audaciousness of anxiety, and what all it can pull out of you. You will find new ways of satisfying yourself. You will experience a resurgence of emotions for those you've already lost.

You will think grandly, at length about the not so grand holidays. A stray cafe, a lone restaurant, a pretty brunch by the sea, the bolognese pasta with mom, the bacon pizza shared in an Israeli cafe, the green bathroom, all that beer — everything glowing grander, more lavish in retrospect.

The capitalist in you will rebel and scold you for not having bought that TV set, that hatchback. You will make a note that you will buy these first thing once this is over.

You will scroll through all the favourites in the album on your phone. You will linger a tad longer on the ones from the holiday in the snowy hills, and the other one with Emraan Hashmi. You will remember his smile, those twinkly eyes, the sheepish smile and the breath of fresh air he had brought to your locked in life back in school. You will wish for him to make more movies.

You will understand that participation in history is more tedious than reading about it. You will learn more about the unsaid, undocumented, unaccounted for sacrifices that are silently made in order to pave way for something better, for something bigger. You will understand that romance exists more in hindsight.

You will define relationships, draw out and pull some people closer, all the while shoving others away. You will read better, you will share more.

You will create a safe space — in between the pages of a notebook, in one corner of your mind with all those favourite movies and books, at the balcony staring at the crepuscular sky sipping on some black coffee spiked with red rum.

You will so many photos of the sky, the boundless joy it promises, the starkness of travel will hit like a load of bricks.

You will feel like its a good time to be a control freak, hedonistic, anxious and extremely self-obsessed. You will justify all the years of anxiety purchasing soaps and toothpaste. You will get ahead of yourself at times.

Your diaries will swell with a new vocabulary. You will find more meaning in all the photographs your mom shares, all your conversations with her will last longer.

You will struggle with your relationship with god. You wonder in and out of a lot of memories that were long forgotten. You will understand why it takes the atheists to reach middle-age to be able to call themselves so.

You will feel like drinking at 1pm, but you'll wait. You will want to drink everyday, but you'll not have enough alcohol.

You will sleep less, eat more, try to sleep more, read crazily, not do much physical exercise. You will blast favourite songs outta those windows and try to drown out the drone of silence outside.

You will wake up with sweaty palms, and a string of nightmares, all of it taking you back to the months you spent alone in the south Indian town three summers ago. You will thank god for this not having happened then.

You think about the air, the dipping pollution levels, and the cost of it all. You'll find company in the sight of stars from your balcony.

You will love seeing a blue coloured butterfly and the strange new very small birds you stare at from the balcony. All the parrots you've seen, the photos of home sparrows your mum has been sharing. You will think a lot about them.

The Diwali last year will feel like from an age ago. Everything a distant blur.

More importantly, you will try not to be lonely, for you know better. You'll turn on the radio at odd hours during the day and night, and break out into a catatonic dance while listening to an inane song.

You will dream of your dream city, for the first time. That will make you smile.

Your dreams will be a strange amalgamation of what you want and what you already have, and in that you will find solace.

When this is over, you will tell yourself, you will work harder to achieve it all. You will tell your control freak self, that from now on you will only try and control what you can, and that most things are beyond us. This will also seem strange.

As Melandri says, we are all 'low-key seers', and new to this experience as the lone dog barking on the road outside. For the time being, I'd be thankful for the internet, for having to stay home. I'll listen to more Bangla songs, and grapple at straws trying to make sense of this very novel, very very new language.