The Covid-19 lockdown stretched our days and one day melded into the other, much like waves in the sea. There was no start and no end – just an indeterminate expanse.
Enforced confinement is an unusual state for all three of us. Anjali and I bickered often. Sometimes Genie would be irritated and disappear for long periods, which was a dampener.
A normal day involved housework, cooking, eating, some shouting, on a lucky day some swearing, on a good day lots of jokes and then the TV would come alive to drown out the noise. Most days it started with the news and then veered to the Fox Life channel and then we'd subside into our secret food hell. Genie and Anjali would often turn to me and say, "You've got to cook that."
Anjali had taken to joining me at the Gonsalves home, then we’d walk around our housing complex several times until Mr Duggal, the secretary of our housing society, alerted by the annoyed security guards, would ask us to get off the grounds and go home. As soon as we heard the loudspeaker being switched on and Mr Duggal clearing his throat for his big announcement cum name-shame business, we disappeared. So when he did make his announcement, we were looking out of our sitting room window. Neighbours would come to their windows and see other walkers on the ground and, I assumed, wonder why Mr Duggal was making it personal by naming just us.
As in most apathetic Mumbai societies, no one stood up for us. But after the fourth time, Anjali suggested we write a formal letter of complaint to Peaceful Society committee, alleging harassment.
“What do you say, Genie?”
“Hmm.”
“Why is he targetting us when the garden is littered with walkers!” Anjali had a way with words. Littered was apt. Even if lockdown was in place, it meant nothing to Mumbaikars – especially in Peaceful Society. Apparently social distancing was for other people. When neighbours stopped to talk, they invaded our private space and, all too often, we found ourselves stepping back. Surely the deadly virus would overpower a weak mask and conquer all within droplet-catching distance.
Everything was due to the lockdown. We nagged Genie and our every waking moment was devoted to annoying him. He was our mouse and we were two cats arranged on either side of him. Genie ignored us totally, but still made us tea in the mornings and evenings and snacks.
“Do you have to let that awful thing drink out of your cup every day?” Anjali spluttered one morning when she saw my darling mosquito friend Norbert take the first sip of my morning tea, flavoured with lemon grass. I heard Nobby’s satisfied sigh. Yes, I nodded.
“Tell her the universe will not spin if I don’t,” Norbert said.
“The universe will not spin if he doesn’t drink from my cup,” I told Anjali absently, watching my friend fly off and sit on the fish tank.
“Bullshit. Plus, imagine all the disease in his proboscis.”
I imagined it. And let it go. Life was too short. It hadn’t killed me so far. Though I did not know what disease, if any, lurked in me. Norbert buzzed around me and settled on my ear. I shivered from the tickle. “Don’t listen to that silly girl.”
“Norbert is welcome to drink from my cup any time,” Genie gave us a killer grin. And suddenly Norbert was off and flying towards Genie. I saw him sit on Genie’s ear, whispering animatedly.
“Same thing. Disease,” Anjali grumbled. “Where is your electric fly swatter?”
Norbert jumped off and flew towards Anjali. “Nobby, no!” I shouted. He held still in midair and then flew back to Genie and hid in his hair.
“Tell your friend that was a close shave,” Nobby said. How easy it was to rile yoga-loving Nobby – wasn’t meditation supposed to calm the soul?
“Er, we don’t have a fly swatter,” I told Anjali.
**
This is a fictional series about the 30-something narrator, based in Mumbai. Her former pet fish and parents’ former man Friday have returned to stay indefinitely.
Lockdown Dairies revolve around the Covid-19 confinement. Time hangs heavy for the narrator... with many irritations.
"Why not?"
“We don’t have a mosquito problem,” I said waving my hands at the room. We had never had one after my acquaintance with Nobby and we were off limits to his friends.
“Bullshit.”
“Have you been bitten while you’ve been here? Ever?”
“Er, not that I can think of. But I’ve seen swarms of mosquitos outside. It won’t hurt to keep an electric bat handy. What if those guys get in?”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be sure.”
“Have they bitten you while we’ve walked about… even at night?” Anjali was silent. “That’s Nobby’s doing.”
“Bullshit. I wear Odomos.”
“I don’t and I’ve never been bitten… at least in this society.”
“Sorry, my darling, I can only manage the guys in my territory. Can’t do a thing when you go outside Peaceful Society, you know that,” Nobby said, sounding upset.
“Of course I know that, my sweet yoga-boy,” I said to Genie’s ear. I suddenly knew what I was going to cook for breakfast. I looked at Genie. He had had a bath, and his hair was wet. He still wouldn’t say where he went every morning. I looked out of the window and took a deep breath to quell my irritation. Some ladies in the building opposite ours were watching. I went to the window and closed the thin curtains.
“You're shutting out the light. Leave the curtains alone,” Genie ordered.
“Er, there are some girls in Wing E watching us.”
“Some guys too. Open the curtains.”
I pushed the curtains apart slowly, looking out curiously. One topless married guy looked away. But Mrs Bakshi and her daughter from the eighth floor and the paying guest girls on the sixth looked on unabashedly.
“Some would say it is tit-for-tat,” Genie said coming up behind me, amusement in his voice and nodding vigourously at the overjoyed women.
“Why tit-for-tat?”
“Ask your binoculars.”
I felt chastened. Embarrassed by my activities of the past few weeks. “Karma is probably the word to use,” I mumbled.
“Just desserts. Tit-for-tat. Karma. Same thing.”
**
