My Lockdown Experience: The Ups and Downs And A Stressful Start

I have very mixed feelings about sitting down to write this. Partly because I’m still unsure if and how this – the lockdown or coronavirus – will end for all of us. Not just the 3 three of us, but everyone in general. Also will it make me happy when I read it back later. Or will I cringe at myself for being an idiot?

The situation had started impacting us quite early on. Working for a company which has multiple offices in most Southeast Asian countries, I started seeing quite a few of my colleagues in Singapore beginning to self-isolate and quarantine themselves as early as January. Work travel plans started getting cancelled. Bidisha’s wedding was supposed to be the last time we travelled out of town for awhile. But of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

One Tuesday night in the first week of March I get a call my father who lives in Calcutta, saying he felt really unwell. Us being in Bangalore, the best solution seemed to be to get him to a hospital while we figured out a way to get to Calcutta as soon as we could. Luckily we have great family there who were able to get him to the hospital. In the meantime, my husband Maddy and I took the next available flight to Calcutta. Packing our bags that night was the first time I truly felt scared about the situation. I was terrified about why my dad was sick and whether I (who had travelled to Jakarta in early January) should even be going to see him. I had to make sure it was okay and luckily my office offered great resources to answer any questions we had about the virus. I was told that since it had been 2 months and neither me or anyone around me had any symptoms it was safe to travel.

At the Bangalore airport, all I remember is a sea of anxious people in masks trying to get home. This is 10 days before India would eventually ban all flights and interstate travel and have a lockdown in place. We got to Calcutta, headed straight to the hospital from the airport. After what felt like a 100 hours we met the doctor and was told that it was going to be okay. He was weak due to a combination food poisoning and his pre-existing condition. We could take him home after he had rested for a couple of days. We could finally breathe. Once we knew it wasn’t what we were afraid of, I just wanted to get him out of there as fast as possible. It felt like a hospital was the last place we should to be in at that point.

So we took him home, but we were still super worried and decided to hire someone at home to help us out. Which turned out to be the best decision ever. If there’s anything I’d like to congratulate my past self for..it is this moment when I decided to hire someone with professional medical care experience over a regular helper type person. I’ll tell you why this was so important later on.

So things were starting to look up, dad was safe, recovering and back home. After a week, seemed everything was under control. We decided it was probably okay to fly back to Bangalore. Even though my dad protested, we decided to keep his nurse/ helper on for some more time, just in case, mostly for our peace of mind. So we fly back to Bangalore. I decide to work from home for two weeks to self-isolate as I had traveled through a couple of airports, and all seems fine.

2 days later India instituted a complete lockdown of all businesses and travel. No-one is allowed outside their houses, stores open for essentials for a couple of hours daily, all airports shut down, no trains, buses, no travel of any kind. The only people allowed past police checkpoints are medical professionals with IDs to prove it. So essentially for my 72 year old dad, this meant the person we had hired to help became the only one now able get past the cops to our house, to take care of him while he recovers and get him the essentials. His cook and driver he was dependent on normally were no longer allowed to come.

It’s now been more than a month since the lockdown started, so a month now since our new normal. Maddy and I are in Bangalore with his parents. My dad is slowly getting better, not back to his normal state yet, but getting there. My day now starts with a video call with him in the morning, and another one in the evening and before he goes to bed. I thank his nurse everyday and ask him if he’s been stopped by the cops or if he foresees any trouble getting to work the next day. He hasn’t missed a single day yet.

I work from home now, so I usually make my morning coffee and head to the study at around 9 – 9:30 which is around when my first meeting of the day usually is and such it continues till about 6 – 6:30 PM most days (insert rolling eyes emoji). While I realize I’m lucky to be working in IT where I’m able to work from home, and actually to even have a job right now, I still am annoyed that the number of useless meetings somehow seems to have tripled.

In the evenings we usually talk to some of our friends, watch Netflix, sometimes have a drink and talk about how we’ll start working out from tomorrow. Not kidding, we never miss that part – the talking about working out part, not the actual working out part 😀 This also includes us sometimes watching Anisha and DJ’s very inspiring park workout stories, admiring them while calling them not so great names :D. Our two cats – Sylvester and Dobby, have proved they are worth their weight in gold and are the true MVPs of keeping us entertained and sane during this time.

Overall the days are getting better, I’m starting to feel more hopeful and positive that things are taking a turn for the better. The one thing I probably want to see happen most desperately is the lifting of the interstate travel ban so I can go to Calcutta for a bit. But apart from that I feel like we’ve fared better than most. Mostly I’m a constant jumble of emotions, I’m grateful, guilty, anxious, exhausted and bored all the same time. I’m grateful for things I wasn’t before – primarily the safety and security of living with our families, having the resources and just dumb luck of avoiding a scenario that could have turned so much worse. Some days I long for the freedom of being able to go without a care in the world. Other days I think about how it’ll probably be dangerous for a long time to come even after the lockdown is lifted and I never want to leave the house or see anyone ever again. Also I think I’m slowly but surely turning into an actual potato. So it varies.

Anyway so to conclude, I now present a summary of what is a list of all the ways I’ve used my time instead of doing something more productive and helpful. But to be totally honest, no regrets at all. We’re all doing what we need to get through this so just do what you gotta do. And whenever you meet that friend who’s a nurse or a doctor or actually anyone who’s been tasked with helping keep us all safe and alive, make sure to thank them and buy them a drink!

Korean (you know I am obsessed with K-shows!)

English:

1. I tried to paint my our room and gave up when I realized we have no paint

2. I learnt how to make cold brew coffee! Its actually extremely simple to be honest, not sure why I’m so proud of it but I am. I drink this everyday now

3. I’ve made every version of a 2 minute microwave mug cake you can imagine (or make this super easy butter cake)

4. I learnt a couple of new chicken curry recipes (curry is my comfort food)

5. Made a bunch of different types of ramen recipes. These were a big hit and also the easiest to make!

I hope all of you are taking care of yourself and practicing your version of self-care when in lockdown and being safe. Hope this post was good read. I wanted to just share my experience and would love to hear about yours. What is hard? What is easy? What are you happy about – and what makes you unhappy and worried? I may have almost settled down to lockdown life now and I am always happy to hear from readers.

– Satarupa