The elixir of nothingness

 A friend wrote this and it resonated with me. She said, "All I want is a good dump and a good night's sleep." 

Yes, it's been a long haul. I feel as though I'm in a constant state of red alert, scrolling through social media to see what the latest infraction that I must raise my voice against looks like. I didn't sign up to be a crusader. I didn't sign up to be an evangelist- saving the world from its moral turpitude.

Given the rising numbers of the infected, the dead, and the agonisingly slowly dying; gasping like fish out of water but in grotesque slow motion, I wonder, if at some point, I will get numbed by all this suffering.

Let us be honest, this was a pandemic that no one was prepared for. When we saw images from China, of people just falling on the street, crumpled dead, it seemed right out of a really bad sci-fi movie. It seemed remote, like a volcano that erupted in Hawaii or Iceland- tragic for them, but less consequential to me, than my toothache.

Three months later, suddenly the horror became real and I immersed myself in poring over epidemiological data and bullying my parents into staying put at home. 

I wouldn't let them visit me and my father would complain that I was paranoid. 

As it happened, my fears came true and my father did catch the infection, after getting hospitalized for an unrelated cardiac problem. The stress of seeing him taken to the isolation wing was something that I couldn't have possibly prepared myself for. But he and we were lucky, it was the first wave and he didn't suffer too much except for the indignity of everyone keeping him literally at arm's length. 

The message coming from our leaders was clear, definite and unequivocal, mask up and avoid gatherings.  

As a nation, however, we deplored the lack of social support, that caused the horrifying departure of migrants to their villages desperate to get there by foot if required. Good samaritans helped much more than the state which seemed to have been caught on the back foot. Many rationalized that we were a poor country and didn't have the resources to provide too much cushioning to the underprivileged.

Meanwhile, the country which had been caught in the crosshairs of opposing points of views on the Citizenship Amendment Act seemed to stumble back to normalcy. Civil activists, students, journalists, and random environmental activists were silenced by the simple expedient of slapping numerous cases on them especially the UAPA-Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The courts seemed to be complicit in denying bail and seemed to equate dissent against the powerful voice of the state with anti-national activity.

Farmers rallied against the farmer's bill and are still camping on the outskirts of the capital braving first the Delhi winters and now the fear of death by Covid. Amidst all the seemingly incendiary issues without any chance of amicable settlement, our population seemed to have lost to a large extent, the fear of Corona. Masks were still worn, but it seemed as if their primary purpose was to hide some wart on the chin or neck where it dangled loosely.

As a health care worker, I was happy to get the first and then the second jab of the Serum Institute produced Oxford-Astra vaccine. I could not wrap my head around people's reluctance to take the jab and our Prime minister did try to exhort people to take the jab. His photograph on the digital certificate should have prodded all his followers into taking the shot one would imagine. Things were going along swimmingly. But for the first of many missteps. We didn't preorder enough vaccines. Serum Institute gambled on the Oxford vaccine getting approvals and ramped up their already impressive infrastructure to provide vaccinations to the rest of the world. Ironically, despite the largest manufacturer of vaccines being based out of India, the Indian government didn't see fit to place adequate orders with them. 

Meanwhile, the rallies for the multiphased elections in Bengal and polls across various other states, not to speak of the internationally condemned foolishness of allowing mass gatherings at Haridwar for the Kumbh Mela caused the virus to come out resurgent, buoyed by its mutation, into a still more contagious form, leaving no one untouched by its evil maleficence. 

A classmate of mine described his gut-wrenching experience with the disease. Believing himself to have every privilege of power, resource, and advantage in a city he grew up in, his wife who was herself Covid positive, drove him around for six hours from hospital to hospital as he gasped for breath. Finally, he told her to take him home saying "let me die peacefully at home." Teary eyes, sirens of an ambulance, and a beeping oximeter were the sound effects of a melodrama that unbelievably was being played out throughout the country. My classmate was finally lucky to get through but countless others didn't make it to a new dawn.

But I'm tired now. I don't want to have to deal with a new crisis every day. I want to sigh about the mundaneness of life, the dreary monotony of nothingness. I don't want the stress of assigning blame and apportioning responsibility. I don't want to tear an argument apart and point out gaping flaws in a point of view. I want to gape with my mouth open at the latest TikTok or Instagram challenge. I have felt enough- raw and bruised, despite experiencing most things second hand. It's too much, it's still too much!