Random thoughts

 September 11, 2020

 

I still remember being on this date in 2001. I had been feeling uneasy for a few days – like something catastrophic was about to happen. I was lying on my bed and reading, when a friend texted me and told me to put on the TV. I watched the twin towers shatter like they were made of fragile glass. The world changed — I still remember the ways in which it changed — it felt very crazy for many, many months, but not as much as it feels this year.

 

There is different crazy everywhere. Here in Singy the covid numbers are now only in double digits per day and yet we live under restrictions. Some people still talk and behave as if covid is a huge threat here. Many are convinced that these restrictions will continue into the next year.  It feels weird — especially when I contrast it with India where numbers are growing speedily, and still people seem to be wandering around – and sometimes crowding together too. Where there is little talk of covid on media channels or by government officials, creating a sense that covid is a thing of the past. The minor (compared to the crash in GDP, the inadequate healthcare and growing unemployment) problems of Bollywood stars are blasting through most channels all day. And the out of touch with reality PM is saying that the aspirations of 1.35 Indians are throbbingly alive and all is well in control in India. Some of us watch and say, ‘Hey, did he just say that?’ While others, many more others, cheer and say ‘Great job Modiji.’Then there are the forest fires in California but in places like Europe people are travelling to other European countries and making social media updates about their travels. It feels so strange — as if those parts are moving on while some of us are stuck in morass.

 

Most times I am aware of things pulling me in several different directions which makes it hard to focus on any one thing. Except karate, which continues to soothe, to make happy, to ground momentarily. As does reading. I just read a short story, by Tessa Hadley, where a girl coping with grief of multiple losses wraps a blanket around her body and loses herself in books whenever she can. I am aware though that what I read and loved in the first week of 2020 no longer interests me now. And if we are what we read, as many book clubs I belong to say, then I suppose I don’t know who I am since most times I am so uncertain about what I want to read, but it is definitely not what I wanted to read last year. It shouldn’t surprise me that I am not the same person that I was before covid became the threat it is. My life isn’t that deeply changed by covid, so why should I be changed, I say to myself. But then the world has changed completely, and I live in the world almost completely. 

 

It is true that karate and reading feel good, but both are addictions that take me away from something uncomfortable writhing within that I can’t yet touch and name. I feel a need to stop soothing myself using these and focus on the queasy feelings inside which seem to be blocking some vital connection to both the outside and inside. Or maybe the connection is so strong, or it may simply be that I devour all news about the issues people are facing in the world, that everything uneasy in the world finds its way into me, and this overload is best solved by the process of detachment that reading and karate give me.

 

I wonder how others are in this bog of covid? Fatigued and beaten down, or hopeful and still seeing it all as way to slow down, and get rid of the unnecessary from their lives? I remember how I had felt in March and April, that my life was slow enough and I had already pruned it to the basics, and rather than listening more to my true voice the noise in my head became crazier – like all the non-essential rubbish from the deep recesses of everywhere had chosen to invade my mind.  

 

But I do want to prune down further. I want to clear out things – books, which I normally would take down to the library and leave on the shelves where others could browse through and take home if they wanted. But those shelves have been taped off because of covid, so that process will have to wait. I put on the same clothes again and again hoping that they will wear down so I can have more empty space in my wardrobe. I’d even love to cut down my precious stationery, though I don’t know what and how. 

 

I read a report from BBC which says that poorer nations and poorer people are affected more by covid then their richer counterparts. Coloured folks and women more than white men. But this isn’t surprising. Is there a catastrophe that can undo the inequalities and affect the rich more? Or will the world have to be destroyed and re-started from scratch for that to happen. A failed experiment – pour it all out and try again.