Pandemic Thoughts

کب تک دل کی خیر منائیں کب تک رہ دیکلاوج

کب تک چین کی محلات دوگے کب تک یاد نہ آوجے

kab tak dil kī ḳhair manā.eñ kab tak rah dikhlāoge 

kab tak chain kī mohlat doge kab tak yaad na aaoge 

I cannot attempt to translate these lines by Faiz Ahmed Faiz because any attempt would be dismal, to say the least. They speak of loss, love, happiness, and melancholy all at once. They speak of grasping onto something when it feels like you are losing it all.

I am ruefully inclining myself to my averagely poetic sense and writing my blithering thoughts today. The current homebound situation is the perfect solution to every writer’s block and plain procrastination. There aren’t many excuses when writing is the only decent skill I possess, it’s either this or roll in bed all day.

I started off this post thinking about religious predicaments marred in our societies. Specifically, the desi ones. But now, I believe an exclusive post talking about that would be fair because its sensitive and extremely perceptive to each person. It would require a lot of drafts pre-publishing.

So this one I shall dedicate to the current scenario and what our lives have come to.

My life is currently revolving around Ali Sethi’s live streams, religious research, beginner level cubing, letting my friends back into my self muted bubble, expressing everything I have been feeling about my choices, curling up reading through old beautiful chats, and an extremely small amount of effort towards my professional career goals.

I now wake up to alarming announcements by my parents about which country has gone into lockdown, what’s the new possible preventive measure, fears looming about when this will end and the eternal question of how a virus could’ve brought the entire world into a lockdown. None of us have answers, none of us are better equipped at this than the other. The bad thing, we are all grappling for answers. The good thing, we are all in this together.

Through it all, through the sluggishness of the day, through the eerie silence outside our homes, the silence of not hearing the Salah (Islamic Prayer) throughout the day, I cannot help but be grateful. That I am HOME. With my family. Not miles away struggling for basic survival needs and worrying about their health.

Even though I could do without alarming WhatsApp news reports, squabbling over the truthfulness of these sources, the sound of a pressure cooker going off in the background while my sister attempts to listen to an online class, having to juice oranges every day and my Clorox smelling hands after a disinfecting surfaces session – I am still grateful.

At this phase in my life, I stand on the relatively safer side of this war. And I know truly well how easily I could’ve been on the other end. Tending to patients, away from family and queuing up to buy necessities. Life is funny like that, the same situation which brought me to frustrating tears on some days is today everybody’s solution for survival. I don’t feel stuck anymore, I feel like I have joined the rest of the world in waiting. No one is getting ahead of me, causing me tremendous anxiety and my life isn’t spiraling. It’s at as much a standstill as the next person. 

But this has also forced me to scrutinize my choices. I am slowly coming to terms with an inevitable heartbreak, the fresh pain that will come along with it and the healing that has to follow it. Where will I be at the end of it?  Hopefully healthy and alive, even without scars to show. I know this time is going to be transformational for so many out there. We are forced to sit down with ourselves and evaluate what and who we love enough in our lives to stick around for. It will take some cringe-worthy memories to remind you how we could have been better and kinder to someone somewhere.

This time is a reminder that love is every moment that we are our most real selves. I am grateful for the people that made me feel love through difficult times and at the same time praying for all of you front-liners who have families waiting for you back home. No other global pandemic has required people to be concerned about other people in such thoughtful measures, irrespective of what you feel for them. This is bigger than you and me, this is about how our actions impact thousands around us. Empathy is everything. Stay home and do your bit, dear world. I am going to be a receiver of anything good that comes out of this.