July 9, 2021: The familiar sounds are back

July 9, 2021: The familiar sounds are back. Even though there is supposed to be a lockdown the sounds of the night are back as I sit on the verandah. It is a warm night, still and humid with a few mosquitoes wanting to feast on my blood. Blood. I remember blood and plasma. The horrifying days not too long ago when blood was needed, and the calls had to be attended to. Today we have thankfully moved away from that. For now. It is the call for vaccines. Conferred with a person who too is trying to get a vaccination camp going. Joining forces. The Wake Angels are also a part of this effort as is Devdas. Much can be done when people come together, and COVID-19 has perhaps been a reminder of that. We are not atomized individuals that are fighting our solitary battles. We can find support. We just need to have the predisposition to seek the support and accept it humbly. I was talking to a bondhu and realizing how frequently well-meaning support is cast aside until things become dire. That is perhaps a metaphor for what we have experienced the last several months. But on the chair (that I share with the black cat) the night seemed like the nights from the years before. The young couples are back in the park, the motorcycles are roaring down the street, the stray dogs are more settled with familiar people walking the streets and shooing the dogs away. That is how things come back to a familiar place and people begin to re-engage. My life is still a hybrid of the online and real existence. Have classes starting next week – living in several times. Yet there is a sense of calm that prevails. A clam that comes from the frenetic pace of a big city where the normal is a lot of rushing around. In a paradoxical situation it is the breakneck pace, the clogged and sometimes waterlogged streets, with traffic crawling along, frayed nerves of people around you as everyone is chasing something with everyone being on the edge is the normality that calms people. I suppose predictability in life is the most calming factor. Early this morning I had to do a trip to the city to collect some documents. That process involved a wild goose chase, walking around the relatively deserted streets of the morning in the city and banging on closed gates until someone responds and the documents are collected. A sense of achievement follows. I expected this to happen, and when it did happen, there was satisfaction in knowing that things are all OK. Driving around on the busy streets, getting dirty looks from other drivers, honking, and cursing at rickshaws pulling in front with no warning, all this is satisfying. Eventually coming back home exhausted, and the electricity going off for a few minutes. All good. Getting on Zoom and meeting people and students, seamlessly moving between these spaces. All as it should be. I suppose that is what is most important, all is as to be expected. This is the win over the pandemic. We will beat it when the surprises are removed, and one can plan the next few days without the fear that things might get suddenly turned upside down. This is what we have been tired of, I am seeing a return to an expected way of life, with some changes, that has also been normalized. Masks. Or some call it “Maks” here is expected. Now we know to have it with us, and compliance is voluntary. There is a new sense of honesty – yes of course we will use the maks, it is expected, and we know its value. Yes of course my Uber driver volunteers the information that he is not feeling well. Had the vaccine a week ago, he said, and was feverish as I was about to step into the car. He and I both agreed that is best for me to get another car. We parted not with ill will but knowing that the simple act of honesty might have just put a dent in the chain. I paid him half of what the fare would have been and advised him to go home and rest. Lost income he said. Lost lives we agreed. He sped off home. I got another Uber. A combination of honesty, awareness, voluntary compliance, and a concern for others – perhaps that’s the new chain we need. As Fleetwood Mac once said, “Chain keep us together.”