So be it...

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 Well one way or the other, I got done with stuff. It is hot and humid right now. Mouth is dry. Skin is sticky. It's dark. And I am...

Got a bottle of cold water. Was a little disoriented when I stood before the fridge. For a couple of minutes I was looking for the AC remote in the fridge. My brain, I think, associated something that controls the cold with something cold...and there I stood. Gazing at the chilled can of Diet Coke that my father had brought for me earlier today.

There's a tough sticky proposition on when I finish at least two of my big assignments. 

A friend who had told me about this type of lockdown and the second wave right at the beginning of last year - before we knew of stuff happens in waves...said that this kind of on-again off-again execution of opening up and shutting down will happen until 2033. I don't know what he knows or how he knows but he had said stuff earlier that didn't make sense or was too far-fetched and improbable. And here we are.

Still. He can be wrong. 

Oh and just as I typed this out, I see this... Maharashtra contemplating extending the lockdown by another week: https://www-news18-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.news18.com/amp/news/india/maharashtra-lockdown-to-be-extended-govt-mulls-unlocking-in-phases-decision-tomorrow-3773393.html?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D

Oh well. There's this chapter in Life of Pi where Pi wakes up. He is in the middle of the ocean. He hasn't yet mastered the tiger, Richard Parker. He has slept uneasily. I think the hyena is out. His body is flooded with fear. Has been flooded with fear. He prays. He sees the main religions in the streaks of colours across the sky - the orange and saffron streaks of Hinduism, the emerald of Islam, the white of Christianity. He lives and then one day he looks around. There's a lot of water, a full desolate, vast ocean around him. His family is dead. And he has no one. All the colours in the sky still get lush and pretty and majestic and in all this, it hits him - his family is dead and he has no one. He kneels down and he howls. There's only the animals and the sky and the water. No sign of rescue. No hope of escape. No certainty of when it will end. In the book, he talks about why he didn't kill himself. No great heroism there. Except that survival is a pact that every cell signs with the Universe and when everything else breaks down, that kicks in. Again no heroism there. Just the brain showing the heart a contract the way an insurance company will point out the fine print..."Yes, sorry that you are broken and stuff but you will have to go on. See, here's what it says in the contract. We will all be going on despite the pain and uncertainty. Thanks so much. Have a good day."

What a brilliant piece of writing that particular segment was. I started getting a sense of this in Varanasi. That we will continue. That THIS will continue. And not because we are strong or some other force or virus is fierce. It's because...it just happens. This no-drama, fuss-free continuation because that's the job.

 

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