COVID Diary: At the cross roads of no entry and no exit, writes Arundhati Dutta Choudhury

May 19: Any second day is surely a progression towards the third day and so the drenched sky with blotches of clouds shall surely turn into sunshine rays. Now I am living alone with a steadfast mission to get cured. Maintaining all possible norms and consuming healthy substantial diet, once again after a long space of time I realize that nothing is indispensable and my proud proclamation of being the prime in my family hold may be any time challenged. And the ultimate solace in our lives is the fact that time must go on. Let me hope. Let me believe and let me trust not in anything else but in me instead. Yes, only with one vaccination, I have not enough acquainted my T-cell with this global-local stranger.

Covid 19 has shaped a newer concept of society where an infected is a single society. A man is a single community and ironically I remember Francis Bacon- “A crowd is not a company” (Of Friendship). Families where even at least one single person has been infected with Covid 19 virus, are in real trouble. They have to become the lone survivors of a lost battle where soldiers are all neatly confined troops. In my case, myself being the housekeeper, the house-maker and all other suffixes to be added with the term ‘house’ was at a perplexed fix when my husband suddenly had to be re-positioned.

In families like ours, the first question is to whom should the burden of cooking, washing be duly handed over. No maid, no cook, no entry and no exit…yes, it is very challenging for a family affected by Corona to run the show of life. But along with the changing stains of novel Corona, the Covid taboos are undergoing inspiring changes too. If in one case, friends are willing to provide lunch, colleagues offer to do grocery marketing. All my friends/ colleagues assured me help,support and this warms up the soul to live a few more better days with them all.

I was worried whether my interior is safe, worried whether the passage of air getting constricted, worried with my sudden changed voice, my loss of smell, with all such strange transformations. Never ever perhaps have I given this much attention to feel the narrow pinch of air coming through my tiny nostrils!!

And I am extremely grateful to noted physician, Dr. Abhijit Chatterjee for his medical prescription. His immense support had earlier helped my husband too, to fight Corona with strength and confidence. Hope to regain once again.

Epilogue:

I located a busy shade
A nasty nest
Of two common mynah
Under my roof-top slant

The sudden human sense
In a forlorn room,
The smell of food
Lure the street-side cat

So mighty yet so poor
I feel in front of the wide snake-plant tree.
Because they are all
In abundance
The curse of Corona free.

Also Read: COVID Diary: My encounter with the virus, writes Arundhati Dutta Choudhury

* Arundhati Dutta Choudhury is an Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, Radhamadhab College, Silchar. She was tested Covid Positive on 17 May, 2021. Sitting in an isolated room during her home isolation, far away from the madding crowd & even more physically far away from her family, she narrated the state of her mind during the 2nd wave of the coronavirus pandemic.