The writing was my Catharsis during the Pandemic

India is like a can of sardines, swarming, teeming with people of all colors and regions.

It often bursts to the seam during various festivities, crammed and raucous, which rents the sky with sounds at different pitches. We are used to it even when we shut ourselves up in our AC rooms. The Television screen spills over with people’s stories into our private rooms, and the swirling world outside seeps into our innards.

So, the lockdown clamped upon us last year during April suddenly silenced our outside world. Life came to a halt. I watched from my balcony half hidden masked faces of some people hurrying away home, carrying shopping bags, or emerging out of the medicine shops or ATM. Fear loomed large in their eyes because the threat was unknown to most, and the unlooked-for social distancing felt oppressive.

Those real stories of daily wage earners dying on the streets of Delhi and on National Highways that led to their native village shook people to the core. These miserable people had lost their jobs. Before the Government was proactive about reaching them home safely, they died of panic and hunger in their hasty bid to run away to their haven. The fear of death from Corona led them to more miserable deaths by the roadside when the disease outstripped them.

Despite the lull around and the assurance of the Indian Government, I felt a strange restlessness within. The whispers among people that Covid 19 was stalking around; the obsessed hoarding of essential items at homes followed by acute scarcity in online shops; the mad siren of the ambulances shrieking loud, carrying sick patients to the hospital nearby, led to my inner disquiet.

I could not numb this pain of misery I saw around me for months. I witnessed them in the sweaty faces of vegetable vendors who sold their wares from door to door, and also, on the grimy faces of the domestic help women who lost their jobs. I witnessed the untold sufferings of millions on my TV screen. I could not calm down my discomfort that sprang from the feeling of being “caged.” They told me that I could save the world by caging myself absolutely as others were doing.

I bought pieces of stuff from those poor sellers who visited my door. I tried to counsel many of my adolescent students who felt captive. They were struggling to get along with our online teaching. I tried to wake up their drooping spirit with my humorous stories, yet I suppose I could drug their pain for the time being. Though my soul screamed desperately for their live presence in front of me, I talked to them and laughed a lot to reassure myself.

I saw the pale-faced death in the eyes of those I cherished and loved. I found women talking over the phone about their lost job or halved salaries and claustrophobic homes. I heard domestic abuse in the screams and muffled sobs of some women in my neighborhood. I felt their pains intensely until one day; I hit rock bottom.

I decided to do my own thing and canceled my online classes.

I cooked, I listened to music and tried to concentrate on reading. Nothing worked. My husband was busy talking to his friends over the phone. I served him coffee and slipped away into my bedroom. I shut the door and sat in a chair. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe in and out deeply. I consciously decided to let go of any thoughts.  My mind was blank as an idiot. I was sailing on a wave.  After the spell broke, I found some peace within which I cannot explain. I calmed down that day.

I went on with this practice of me and my moments of silence for days. I was slowly sinking in. The more I slipped, the lighter I felt. I discovered a nudge within. It was a voice that gave me a clear answer: Write! Write Mandira! Start Writing Again! It was like a piece of unheard music within.

I opened my laptop. I found my Title that I have been searching for since my girlhood days, “EVEN CAGED BIRDS SING” suddenly popped up and winked at me😊 My writing journey found a new milestone. The Pandemic!!! 2020 became my inspiration for self-transformation.