thefeministwriterwhogoesmeh

So the other day, I was watching the movie Dil To Pagal Hai, and swaying to the good old rhythms of the song bearing the same name. But I just couldn’t keep my ever-wandering mind to stay immersed in the cliche love story playing on the television. My mind train kept yeeting to different thought platforms in surprisingly short amounts of time. As accustomed everyone is to my not-so-frequent mood swings, it led to a fairly large ‘spat’ between a family member and I.

Since a few days have passed, I’ve been able to look back at whatever transpired. I took a few insignificant incidents (never mind what they were), added in the stress of staying in for the past few days, and transformed them into an issue so big that I pretty much jeopardized my relationship with the people I love most. I had a migraine the next day, to put the cherry on top of the extra large chocolate sundae. So much for being a calm and level-headed person.

Nowadays, I’ve seen people looking at the novel coronavirus from the cynic’s perspective, or from a technical point of view, but not too many discussing the psychological effects of it. Though I am a planet Earth + tree + animal + environment + etc. etc. lover, and harbor a general dislike towards humans, I have realized that I have gotten quite used to seeing a group of people taking a brisk walk in the morning, or a few familiar faces playing football in the eve. And all of a sudden, it’s like that was all taken away from me.

I mean, it’s not like I have the right to exercise possession of these things, it’s just… seeing people change their routines from enjoying the very first bursts of sun in the loose time of dawn, or watching young parents play silly games with their kids in the community park, or even grumbling about having to face a grumpy boss at work, to suddenly sitting at home all day and endlessly sanitizing everything that might’ve been touched… it just doesn’t feel RIGHT.

However, today I felt a bit better. At 5 o’clock, as requested by our honorable prime minister, seeing everyone clapping enthusiastically for the brave doctors and nurses battling away in the hospitals gave me a sense of hope. My first thought watching people gradually appear in their terraces or balconies was – Damn. Has it been so long that I’ve actually started appreciating my neighbors?

It seemed to restore a sense of normalcy to our lives. It felt nice, like things were gonna slowly start to get better.