Rupert woke up on a Saturday, after a hard night of partying, and swore. “Motherfucker”. “Never again.” I wouldn’t blame Rupert. He had a bitch of a hangover, his head throbbed with an unrelenting ferocity, and he had just had enough.
“I’m thirty four. Why am I still having hangovers?” He did not intend for last night to get that rowdy. But I guess we all know, turning a drink and a dare gets progressively harder and harder as the night progresses when you start getting hammered.

“I need to fix myself. I need me some yoga and some exercise. I need me some fitness.” Rupert was no stranger to these resolutions. However, today could be different. After he and Lisa parted ways, quoting Rupert on this, the house has been quite empty. Added to which his flatmate Samuel, that unquenchable guzzard, had left last night for a business trip that could take the entire week, and the room was suddenly empty for the first time in the past few months. This would be a golden opportunity to try a few new things. No Sam around to mock him or ask him to embrace his ‘dark side’. Good.

“Let’s start with some light yoga, I can Youtube this.” Rupert scrolled through a bunch of videos and checked out various trainers through a series of criteria. The likes on the videos, the subscribers to each channel, whether the video was too long or too short, and of course, how hot the instructor was. Two hours, a meal, a nap and half a dozen distractions later, Rupert finally found the perfect video. Twenty minutes, and fit all his criteria. He resolved to wait till 5pm, after all, he had just eaten. At 7pm, he looked at the time and went- “Oh bother. I might as well do it tomorrow.”

But somehow some shame crept in. He looked at himself in the mirror and cursed himself roundly for attempting to yet again sabotage his own well-intentioned plans. “Look at me. We are doing this. We can do this. Be better. Do you like looking at yourself? I don’t. Let’s get rolling.” And with his resolve strengthened, he decided to once again tackle the task at hand, marshaling all his willpower. He began the exercises and initially found it difficult to keep pace with his breaths. The instructor kept asking him to breath in and continued talking for eternity without ever asking him to breathe out. He breathed in the peace and let out his thoughts. He aligned himself with his inner flow and stretched. Stretched his mind and his mental boundaries. The yoga was a brutal report card on his abilities. Once a champion swimmer, he could now barely touch his own toes as his paunch belly came in his way. Beads of perspiration trickled down an already moist and hot face, as he struggled to keep up with the pace of the poses. “I will not give up. If it means that I try extra hard to touch my head to my feet, so be it. Anyway, I bet loads of beginners get stuck here and never repeat. Hah! I’ll definitely be able to do all this in five days.” With these words of encouragement, he rose like a cobra and stretched backwards for one last time, lifting his toes in a beautiful rendition of a ballerina who still had a long way to go.

Rupert slept peacefully that night. He woke up the next day without any incident, but by noon, noticed a slight dull ache at the small of his back. “Huh, probably one of those cases that goes away with practice.” By the evening, it was a definite sore back, and he opted against continuing his resolve. “No need to break my back and forswear well-intended plans for the rest of my life. I can take a day’s rest and I’ll feel better tomorrow.” He lay back in bed, rolled over to his natural position on his stomach, and waited for sleep to hit him.

Monday morning, Rupert’s life was on fire. He could not move. “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God” spluttered Rupert, the pain making him religious. Rupert tried to sit on his haunches, he couldn’t even get on his back. He scooted towards the edge of his bed, eased his legs off to the floor, and pushed against his hands to stand up. He couldn’t locate the pain, try as much as he did, pressing and prodding his back and buttocks. Nothing in particular seemed to hurt, but at the same time, everything was hurting with the pain of a million torn muscles crying. Now what? “Fuck, I can’t go to work today.” He looked for his laptop, which was on the bed. He leaned over to pick it up and the pain shot through his back and his legs, forcing him to arch his back up and take a step back. He resolved this seemingly insurmountable problem by climbing back into his bed with his knees, leaning on his side and pushing the laptop to the corner of the bed. He then rose again, and agonizingly squatted enough to palm his laptop and walk out to the living room. He quickly typed out a few words and claimed his day of rest.

“What the hell! Where did this pain come from?” Rupert quickly reviewed his Sunday, which passed just like any other day. He woke up, had a big bowl of chocolate cereal, played video games on his phone slouched in his couch. He had then watched a movie while laying down, before falling asleep. He had taken a shower, dressed and hunkered down on his bed. Propping a pillow behind him, he had responded to emails, reviewed his work and then watched Youtube videos until he fell asleep. Nothing unusual. Nothing he hadn’t done for the past ten years. His mind went back to the yoga. “What else can it be? Yoga was the only new thing I did this weekend, and look what it got me. Fuck this.” When Samuel came back that Friday, Rupert went out drinking. And many more times after that. He never did yoga again. One attempt was enough for a justification.

Back in December, we first started hearing whispers of a disease in China. A flu virus which had infected quite a few people. We had bigger fish to fry. Back in December, the disasterclass of the Assam National Register of Citizens had unfolded, with millions of Hindus having been declared as foreigners. Political commentators dubbed it as an own goal from the BJP, who were gleefully rubbing their hands at the prospect of Justice Gogoi harrying and hurrying the NRC coordinator to complete the list. As BJP backpedaled to ensure that their Hindu votes in Assam didn’t get thrown out and the popular sentiment didn’t question their motives, they introduced the wonderfully un-subtle Citizenship Amendment Bill. The CAB gave citizenship to all non-Muslim refugees who arrived in India before 2014. Protests broke out, cases were filed, the CAB rolled on and became the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019). India was protesting in January, we started hearing murmurs of an infectious disease in January, Delhi was voting in February, Delhi was rioting in February, Liverpool lost their first league match in February, and people started stocking up on masks and sanitizers in February.

Come the March, cometh some Italian tourists to visit our famous sex sculpture caves in Khajuraho. It is a tad unfair to target these individuals as the first carriers of the disease, as they are merely the first reported carriers. Who knows how many have been flying in and out of this country for the past three months? Anyway, they left, but left something to remember them by. It was official, Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, was here to stay.

India was slow to wake up to the virus, but it soon swung into action. By mid-March, many states have announced social distancing and work from home policies, with some making this mandatory. A lot has been said about the testing, the efficacy and efficiency, the flaws in our healthcare system (which I had written about here). Lets not rehash the same. There should be, and hopefully will be, many studies conducted that analyze the lacunae in our medical responsiveness and healthcare system. I want to focus on another perspective, namely, the vulnerability of certain classes of society when society comes to a standstill.

I went out for a quick grocery run last night, a day before the Prime Minister’s Janta Curfew was to take effect. I noted a state of panic in the streets, with people doing their best to buy and sell as much as possible. The people wanted to hoard as much as they could to the point they feel safe. The hawkers and shop-less vendors conducted as much trade as possible, to offset any possible losses today and for the next few days, weeks or even months. Maids refused to take off-days, since they needed the paycheck to feed their families. Families refusing to give maids a paid off-day, with winsome arguments like “Accha so will you wash the clothes, sweep the floors, cook and do the dishes?”, and the ironically egalitarian logic of “I may not get my bonus this year, and may even get a pay cut. I am still retaining her employment, its only fair to cut her pay na? Why should I fund this maid for free? Corona is a force majeure, and I am still doing the best I can.” Well, for one, if you do not recognize the difference between your Rs 10 lakh bonus or a slight pay cut in your Rs 3 lakh monthly earnings, and the Rs 60 that the maid earns for making your day possible, you are a majeure asshat. Some are innocuous, arguing that even if they stop asking the maid to come, others still will, so they might as well. Some are downright scummy employers, going out of their way to ensure people show up even if means their death.

This virus must have given many people some idea on how poverty is cripplingly vulnerable. Not everyone has a job that can be done remotely. Not everyone has a job that can afford to, and is inclined to, pay them even if they don’t show up. Social inequality is the root to many many problems in the world today, and it is a cycle that has perpetuated itself over millions of years, with the well-offs at their peaks having stepped on the fingers and faces of others. Caste, class, sexism and patriarchy has propelled a select few to the upper echelons of society. In these troubled times, COVID lifts a mirror and shows us what we are as a society. It is up to us to learn a lesson and continue discussing this larger societal disease long after the shadow of this current disease moves on. Society moves on. I hope society doesn’t continue to mow on.

(Year- 2020. India didn’t have the revolution C.B. promised. Nationalism, tolerance, secularism became bitter words over which fights erupted on streets, campuses and homes. In search for a break from news, the internet and all things sensational, the narrator set out from the mainland Mumbai docks with a crew, winding up in Zoonzania, an island south of Lakshadweep. While his crew is welcomed by the animist tribespeople, the narrator is led to ‘Vasant’- their leader. The following conversation is one of many which the narrator had with the simple tribe. I was fortunate to meet the narrator on the New Year’s Eve of 2041, where he agreed to share his recollections.)

Vasant– “In our village, we consult an Oracle when a child is born. The Oracle foresees our life, and answers only what we ask. The future cannot be changed, so if she foresees the child bringing great harm to the community, and the elders kill the child. You see, banishing him or changing him won’t work, because it’s in his future to endanger the village. Only killing him would save the community.”

Narrator- “That’s horrific!” (after a pause) “If you don’t mind telling, what did the Oracle see in you?”

Vasant- “That I’ll bring back the glory of our tribe. I shall be a wise man who shall one day rule the tribe and sustain it into the New Age. I’m glad that the Oracle saw the best in me.”

Narrator- “So what if the Oracle saw the best in you?”

Vasant- “I believe in life. I wake up every day to reach that goal, that point of fulfillment that my life is directed at. I can handle all setbacks in life, because I know that I still have a lot of life in me. I can run over quicksand, I can kill a tiger. My hope, nay, my knowledge in life eventually becoming better is driving me to see tomorrow and live today to the fullest. Then, when it’s time, I’ll have learnt and grasped enough to rule with wisdom and experience.”

Narrator- “I believe that you will be a fantastic ruler. Listening to your words, and the indomitable ring of truth in it, I believe everyone should live their life that way, if at all subconsciously at least.”

Vasant- “Thank you. You are too kind.”

Narrator- “No no, you deserve it. Now tell me this, for this vexed me from the beginning- does the Oracle ever fail?”

Vasant- (gazing over the horizon as the sun sets)“Sometimes. But for our village, the fear of leading a life without a purpose is far more calamitous than living on the terms of someone else whom we believe.”

Letter writing has increasingly become a dying trend, with the advent of social media, free telephone calls, and affordable internet prices. Why is this is an issue? Telegraphs went out when telephones became popular, chariots and horse-driven carriages went out when automobiles became popular across the world. It is the habit and the privilege of later humans enjoying conveniences not available for their predecessors.

I plead the case of letter writing in this piece. To present my case with a clean slate, I confess that I am one of those few who still writes letters. My style of letter writing has changed over the years. I remember the first letter correspondents I had were my parents. Back in 2007 I had joined a boarding school in Hyderabad. My parents were posted in Kanpur, and the only way to communicate with them was through a dial-in landline once a week for ten minutes. However, this privilege only extended to those who had a pre-paid telephone card with them (another relic of a simpler time), which I didn’t have. My first communication with my parents was six months after I joined the boarding school, writing to them not about how I enjoyed my freedom and time away from them, but about how well I was preparing to do in school on a regular basis. Never did, but that doesn’t matter today. I was very touched to receive a two page long handwritten response from my father, and a one page handwritten note from my mother, appraising me of developments and reaffirming their love for me, which had only grown in my absence. I treasured that letter for a very long time, and was very saddened when I realized that the cleaning ladies may have thrown it away since it was under my mattress.

As the years went by, mobile phones became the sine qua non of communications, and I was able to spend time talking to my parents regularly over the phone. I relegated the inland letter dutifully issued to me by my boarding school to conveying the latest version of my handwriting and enquiring after their health, knowing full well that this letter would reach them after I spoke to them the following week. I bought a smartphone soon after I enrolled for a college. Being so deprived of technology for seventeen years, I proceeded to enjoy the fruits of technology as much as I could. This led to a great cessation of the use of handwriting or handwritten notes to convey any sentiments whatsoever for a year or so.

As I would soon become aware, the lack of a personal feeling towards text messages would catch up to me and I began missing the feeling of letter writing and reading handwritten notes. When I brought this up with my parents, they would have none of it. Having labored for years to communicate with their loved ones over letters by necessity, they had their share of letter writing for the rest of their life, and advised me to stop pestering them with my childish requests. I was soon fortunate enough, however, to cultivate some friendships that would result in a series of writing.

I cannot put into words the sheer joy that a handwritten note can provide. There are professions based on discerning the mood of the person based on their scrawls. In very minor and imperceptible ways, I try and summon some part of that person through a handwritten note- the arcs and tilts of the pen, the pressure put into the paper, the effort taken to write in a consistent straight line- as if I was standing over their shoulder while they were writing the letter and reading it in their voice. The beauty of the handwritten note is that it grows more valuable each passing day. With the popularity of internet and social media, any thought conveyed in an actual handwritten note conveys concern, regard, love, care, affection and a bond strong enough to compel two individuals to share their thoughts in as intimate a manner as letters. Facebook and Whatsapp can commoditize the convenience of quick messaging. I’m afraid they cannot commoditize the value of heartfelt messaging.

I fear for the future of handwritten letters, knowing several modes of communications have died a slow and inevitable demise when there is no further demand for it. The Postal Office seems like a permanent institution in India today, long may that last! This is a ominous prediction, but I am tempted to preemptively quote the show Game of Thrones “what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.”

Hi All,

Its 2020. Unless my notifications have somehow slowed down in the last ten days, India hasn’t become a superpower yet. Still eagerly waiting on that. I, on the other hand, have decided to up my game to compensate. Every year, I began with my steely resolve and fool proof plans to seize the year and march towards glory. Predictably, I lose the plot fairly quickly and fast forward to the end of the year, when I wonder what I could have done with the time I had. Not anymore. This year, I have resolved to populate this space with a jumble of content. This will include poems I scribble, incomplete stories I think of, places I see and people I talk to, and maybe much more. Inertia is the enemy. By the end of this year, I would like to tell myself that I may not have done much of effect in anything, but at least I tried doing something in many things. After all, our Finance minister seems to be following the same trick. Hope to see many blank pages filling up this year.