Where do we go from here?
Hey my loves,
I feel like I only write to you when there’s bad news and I feel like the only way I make any sense of the world is by pouring my heart out on here and hoping it resonates with you.
For starters, Happy New Year ✨ 2022. Year of the Tiger. King of all beasts. The symbol for bravery, exorcising evil and a charm for good luck. Year 3 of the pandemic. The third wave in India, Omicron- a new variant we didn’t think we’d have to deal with at such a scale again.
We’re better prepared- we’re vaxxed, we’re used to isolating and staying indoors and communicating via devices, we learnt how to cook quick eggs and we know how to go from one zoom call to the next to clock in our hours and collect our paychecks.
But, these last few months, we’ve managed to very quickly forget we’re in a global pandemic. Sure, I’ve worn a mask when I had to but I’ve met friends outdoors, sunned on the beach, sipped from their gin cocktails, shared joints and hugs, huddled in the cold and sneaked cigarettes outdoors, danced a lot under the stars and gazed at fireflies behind DJ consoles, visited restaurants and had 3-course meals role-playing posh adults and played board games and exchanged stories on ambition & desire and it’s all felt so normal.
Normal, and so impermanent.
One of the hardest things about COVID has been how it’s rendered friendships as dangerous. So many transmissions from in-person gatherings. And by now, we’ve learnt that remote connection just doesn’t seem to cut it. It’s necessary and technology has come far in giving us the means to be connected when we really need to but is it really the same as a warm hug? A shared joke? A sunset watched together? No, it isn’t. We need to take a moment to acknowledge the lengths to which we’ve gone to see each other safely, while having broken the rules from time to time.
Every era has a cultural zeitgeist that defines it. Internet in the 80s, social media in the 90s, cryptocurrency, climate change, the global pandemic and the learnings from this period are too vast and complex to wrap our head around any time soon.
Once this virus subsides and hopefully turns into just another flu, the hope is that we’ll double down on our physical friendships. Although interestingly, the absence of shared social spaces- bars, parties, gyms, cafes, offices- some friendships were revealed to be more of convenience than anything else. As our physical and psychological thresholds for sociality changed, some friendships just never met the old criteria. The rhythms of the lunch break, the car ride back from work, the gym date where one traded life updates between the narrow space of our neighbouring treadmills. Did I meet my friends because I wanted to meet them or because I had a free evening and I simply could?
Since then and also since moving to Goa, meeting friends has felt more intentional. Numbers in social settings have reduced and I see more people taking an active interest and curiosity in the lives of others. How was the lockdown?Did you have anybody to feed you when you tested positive? Did you manage to shift your pet across cities? Are your folks okay? How’s your mental health? Yes, I got diagnosed with low grade depression. No, I don’t take meds for it although, I wish I was not conditioned to regard anti-depression medication as ‘bad’ and could pop a Zoloft or two to be happy for a moment? Conversations have shifted. Filled out. Made the awkward silences less awkward and more comfortable.
Good conversation seems to be the necessary glue for any kind of a friendship. During the pandemic, after the endless Zoom calls and birthday parties and Facetime catch-up calls, I’m also exhausted of making conversation through a screen with bad WiFi and looking at the pixelated faces of my friends. Social engagement through lockdowns has decreased and frankly, there isn’t much to talk about. The best chats I’ve had through the major lockdown periods have been the ones that have happened once every three months or so. The dwindling of shared experiences aside, the pandemic also exacerbated social inequities. Given the range of burdens and their consequences, it felt like there was simply not enough to say to one another. How do you speak to your friend who’s been isolating alone and battling addiction, that you got drunk and played Mono Deal with your quarantine buddies? Or, how do you tell another friend who gets evicted at the start of the lockdown that you’re staying with your boyfriend’s family in a posh duplex downtown? Previously mundane conversations reveal the edges of one’s privilege or lack thereof.
Ultimately, the pandemic changed our ways of paying attention— especially online. Some got off social media altogether, some turned to it like it was their last lifeline. Indians experienced a surreal, alternate reality where social media turned out to be a vestibule for people to wait on hospital beds for strangers they’ve never met and send out SOS tweets for oxygen concentrators, when cylinders had run out. At a time like that, expressing any joy or suffering cuts deeply into others. How do you celebrate your book getting agented while somebody else is mourning the loss of their spouse?
As restrictions are politicized and nobody is really sure of what the future holds, having lost faith in their Governments, social plans come to a grinding halt, small businesses suffer and we’ve all once again taken refuge inside our homes. Bosses still expect you to come into work, which is the most absurd reality to contend with, at a time other social constructs meant to hold and uplift you are no longer accessible.
I was in Bombay a few days ago and despite no lockdown, there aren’t too many people on the streets except the ones who need to be in order to survive. The air is dense and the PTSD of the second wave has people triggered.
“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough,” Walt Whitman said once and at a time where the tendency might be to condemn all of us as being cavalier about public health, we could try looking at the lapses as a feature of humanity. About how friendship exalts us in our best moments and saves us in our worst ones.
Illustration by Wenjia Tang
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