Dear citizen of the future,

I am a 23-year-old dweller of the “days of the future past”. Tis a time I call the present and you will glorify as the past. And you’ll be lucky to do so. I am about to embark on a ramble about the quarantine I and my fellow “Covideers” (if I dare pull a Shakespeare by inventing my own words) have been subjected to thanks to COVID-19. I call it a ramble because I hardly think it possible to commit to structure at a time when all semblance of order has been lost. Bear with me, for here goes.

My quarantine began in earnest on March 19, 2020. That was the first day my dad did not go to work, and the driver and maid did not show up. That day marks the lock-down for me, though Corona had confined me to my home since the closure of IBA on February 27, 2020. It was on this day that the gravity of the situation hit me. I realized what I had viewed as a welcome vacation from the anxieties of academics was in fact a more anxiety-inducing situation. I had escaped from the jaws of a now seemingly tame lion, only to fall at the feet of a giant leviathan. On March 19^th, I felt this monster, this leviathan-like lockdown, would consume me, that it would devour me alive. Maybe I was being dramatic or may be this was realism. I just knew it didn’t feel good.

Yet I cannot describe what I felt and what I still feel in relation to the pandemic. I have heard friends and people on social media use words like fear, depression, anxiety and germ-phobia to describe what they feel, yet I cannot put my finger on the category of emotions I dominantly feel about Corona. I just know that I was never afraid for my health. The thought that I could contract the disease doesn’t often cross my mind. And when it does, I find myself shoving it off as a redundant impossibility.

Is this abnormal I wonder. Should I be afraid of the disease like society expects me to be? Should I switch my gear from the instinct of living life to the instinct of surviving? Self-diagnosis is never a good thing, but I will still indulge. Perhaps I am in denial. Or may be the virus is indeed more anecdotal than real. The political scientist in training within me forces me to take every piece of news and information with a pinch of salt. I try to look for the politics and conspiracy theory in everything. I read the global figures with eyes squinted in suspicion. I still cannot say with 100% surety that COVID-19 is real. I’ve resorted to a new mantra lately, “Il faut du temps au temps” – one must leave time to time (Francois Mitterrand). Time will tell what is real and what is not. If I might here invoke Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, at present I’m one of the cave-dwellers feeling intensely the “shadow of contingent and uncertain truths”. This uncertainty is the monster that hides in my closet. I’m acutely aware of its presence but I cannot identify its shape. Perhaps that’s for the best, perhaps it saves me from a horror I am not yet ready for. I hope you O Reader, are the one outside the cave, out of the shadows of this pandemic and bathed in the “blaze of Truth”, on the enlightened end of this mystery.

And while we are on the subject of you, my Reader, let me indulge in some fourth-wall-breaking here. I know who I am (or at least I think I do) and how this pandemic is shaping me, but it will do me some good I think to know, or at least to imagine my audience. One image I have of you is as a researcher sitting behind a desk, either smiling in this moment for being acknowledged by me or irked by what you think is my pretentiousness. Maybe you are researching on the psychological effects of a lockdown on college students or maybe you are analyzing the fecundity of art during a global crisis. Or maybe you have just stumbled upon my piece and are so intrigued by my character that you are compelled to keep reading on. An alternative image I have of you is as a non-academic (or an academic reading for non-academic purposes), sitting relaxed in your armchair or lying in bed in your dim yet sufficient night-light. You love reading historical accounts and World Wars are just too far back in the past for your taste. Perhaps COVD-19 pandemic is to you what Cold War is to me. Whoever you are, know that I envy and love you. Envy at the freedom you (hopefully) have that I do not, and love you to empower you for whatever is written in your future. Because trust me, life has a way of taking the most unexpected turns.

Back to me now, because after all, this is more about me than it is about you. And while I have the liberty to speculate about you, I don’t want to give you the liberty to speculate about me. I’d much rather paint a self-portrait than risk letting you blotch some part of me with your wild imagination.

Now to the big question. How do I spend my days during lockdown? I am a woman who likes stability and predictability in life. I have an almost unhealthy obsession with maintaining schedules and giving structure to my day. So, the first day that lockdown was announced, March 19, 2020 according to my record, my organizing mechanisms immediately came into play. I went to my room, where mounted on my wall is a glass pane that functions as a white board for me. I immediately divided my now lockdown days into two to three-hour time slots, allocating them to house chores, family time, studying time and so on. [Scroll down to Exhibit A for a detailed visual.]

And that became the basic structure of my day, though of course I had to make adjustments for online classes. Though I do not follow the schedule to the dot, it still sums up most of the goings-on of my days. Another testimony of my fixation with planning is my monthly calendar that lies flat on my desk. March is a sorry picture. [See Exhibit B] On the box for March 13^th, I’ve scribbled the following: “[Uni resumes?]”. Dotted across the second week are the dates and times of the midterms that were meant to happen but never did. I’ve crossed a big “X” on each passing day with a finality that I wouldn’t have to live it again and with the hope that the next day will be freer, only to have finally exhausted the month and continued the charade into April. It’s sad but its historic. And that latter fact makes me happy. I feel relevant in history. And if I’m not by the time you are reading this O Reader, you please give me that relevance. Trust me, I’m trying to deserve it.

I have to say, despite its monstrosity, quarantine is Janus-faced. It’s one side is a blessing that softens its curse. Or at least that’s the case with me. I was afraid at first that I would go crazy staying home (I still might), but so far, the good days have outnumbered the bad ones. And the credit most-definitely goes to those around me. So here, let’s take a moment to paint a detailed picture of my social situation i.e. my family. Trust me, this is not irrelevant, as will soon become clear to you.

One of my foremost worries on March 19^th, 2020, was my father. I was not worried for his finances (though I cannot say the same now). I was worried for his emotional and mental health. He is a man who likes to keep himself busy, after-all he is my father. I feared anxiety and helplessness would consume him due to forced quarantine, especially due to its indefiniteness. I realize now that I was unfair in my judgement of my father’s response that day. My prediction came untrue. I overlooked my father’s realism and farsightedness. If there is one quality that sums up my father, it’s his stoic commitment to contentment. Indeed, throughout my life, my father has displayed time and again his chameleon-like ability to adapt to changing circumstances. I have never ever heard him complain about his troubles to anyone, not even to his family. He braces himself for misfortunes one after the other. Even though he is a petite man lacking any sense of macho, I know him to be a Hulk, unrooted from his commitment to stability no matter how harsh the wind blowing against him.

So, on that first day he was quarantined and on the days that followed, I noticed how he too developed a schedule for himself (though he did not feel the need to put it into writing the way I did). Every morning, he wakes up around 8:00 and watches self-educating documentaries on diverse topics including global events, history, conspiracy theories etc. He traverses various global news channels to make sure he has diverse accounts of global events and is not being brainwashed into any one particular narrative. This is something he’s done for as long as I can remember and is not specific to the lockdown. If I ever do wake up at that time, he’s always sitting on the sofa in the lounge, iPad in his lap and earphones in his ears, oblivious to the world around him and relentless in his attempts to self-educate. After this engagement however, his days become more lockdown-specific. Some days he makes breakfast for my mother and himself, and sometimes he lets her do it. Then he helps with house chores. Every afternoon after lunch, he continues his marathon of Alfred Hitchcock movies from 1950s onwards. In the evenings, he reads. He’s reading two books simultaneously. One is my recommendation, “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” by Mohsin Hamid and the other is the dense Aab-e-Gum by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi.

I mention my father in this detail because he’s an undeniable inspiration for me. His calm helps settle any storm that brews (or is about to) in our house. Just the other day, I was feeling low because of the monotony of the days and a couple of stray tears rolled down my face. He silently went to his room, brought a tissue from in there, sat next to me and dabbed my face dry with it. And immediately I felt whole again. That is my father. He gives me sanity. And since sanity is so important in this lockdown, you must see now why it was absolutely integral to draw a sketch of my father for you.

But my quarantine journey and I are still incomplete without the two other important constants in my life: my mother and my younger sister. If my father shapes me from a distance, my mother does so more directly. And my sister helps me process the emotional aspects of all the new developments. That’s the interdependence of our Dynamic Quartro.

One of the first few days of the lockdown, we had an informal family meeting, my mother occupying the heavy role of chairman. Household responsibilities were divided equally among the four of us. Though authority to overrule lay with my mother, the process was overall democratic in that we could volunteer for whichever chore we wanted to undertake. I chose to vacuum my room, my parent’s room and the lounge along with dusting each of these rooms. My sister got to clean her room, iron all of our clothes and fill the water bottles in the fridge as soon as they emptied. My father was tasked with doing daily groceries and cleaning our sehen area outside. He also had to water the plants and boil water for our daily consumption (we don’t use bottled water). My mother cooked, cleaned the kitchen and washed our clothes. All this was to happen daily. We could wash our bathrooms individually and the frequency of the task was left to our discretion.

My mother is the balancing act of our household. She has the unique ability to identify the emotional atmosphere as soon as she enters the room. And then she takes it on herself to dissipate the tension if she tastes it in the air. She knows when to give space and when to offer a hug. She always prioritizes academics, so if my sister or I have a class at let’s say 12:00, she begins reminding us 11:45 onwards to attend class, making sure we are not disturbed during its span. Sundays are off days where none of us do any chores. This means I still have weekends to look forward to, where I can sleep in and do what I please.

All this sounds quite idyllic, and truly I am one of the luckier ones, but that doesn’t mean all is paradise. We do get irritated by each other. Each of us does lash out at times when we’re feeling too frustrated. We do get into pointless arguments, if only to engage our mental faculties. There are days when we get irritated not by anything in particular but by everything in general. Sometimes we fail to identify each other’s needs. Sometimes we misinterpret. There are days when we are silent and unengaging, but then there are days when our house booms with laughter. That’s life, and life goes on. Each of us is dealing with it, and each of us is helping ones around us to deal with it. We are all trying our best and that’s the best we can do.

Like many in lockdown around the world, I too undertook some new habits and developed new interests. I delved headfirst into therapeutic coloring, an endeavor we indulged in as a family. My sister pulled out her Japanese adult coloring book and a 36-coloring-markers set on the first day of lockdown, and let’s just say we’re still not tired. [See Exhibit C]. Couple of days back, my mother had the spontaneous idea to display our best pieces on the window outside our apartment for all our neighbors to view and get inspired. [See Exhibit D for a visual]. I also discovered an unexpected enjoyment in cooking. My reasons for undertaking the endeavor were threefold; I had too much time, I wanted to finally learn the skill and I wanted my mother to have a break from time to time. I learnt basic dishes like Aloo Qeema and a fancy recipes like potato au gratin. And to my utter surprise, I am not too bad. I have also had fun helping my sister bake, though my help is mostly limited to sitting on the bar stool in the kitchen and chatting away with her while she cooks.

Chunks of my day are also spent playing various games with one or the other member of my family. My father, sister and I play the 3-player version of trump call teen-do-paanch and rami. We play Sequence, Banana Grams and a board game called Thirty Seconds in which my sister has yet to defeat me. My father and I binge-watched Pyare Afzal on YouTube in the first week of lockdown, which played in the background as we colored. Every night we sit as a family to watch our daily dose of Pakistani dramas. If you were to enter the scene, you’d see four people sprawled on the couches, their gazes fixed on the screens but their mouths constantly moving. That’s because we don’t watch in anticipation of the stories. In fact, our entertainment is in being strict critics of the media we consume. We critique production, plotlines, acting, direction, cameraman-ship, ensemble etc. Each night, we shake our heads in disappointment and ask each other why we continue to subject ourselves to such horrors, only to find ourselves repeating the cycle the following night. It’s funny I tell you, and its also fun. And that’s why we do it.

I have also taken this time to get back to a hobby I’ve always enjoyed, and which is difficult to indulge in alongside university. Reading. So far, I’ve read The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Wo Yaqeen ka Ek Naya Safar by Farhat Ishtiaq (this is the 3^rd Urdu novel I’ve read in my life and the one I’m most proud of from this list), Origin by Dan Brown and Becoming by Michelle Obama, in that order. While the “Me time” slot on my daily schedule was reserved for movies and TV shows, I’m almost surprised at my lack of interest in indulging in that activity. I’ve watched only a couple of movies over this span, including the popular and award-winning 1917, Capernaum and of course, the Godfather Trilogy after I got done with the book. I watched the fourth season of Money Heist the weekend it was released on Netflix because a) I was pretty sure someone would spoil it for if I waited to develop the mood, and b) some things you gotta do just because you are a millennial, if everyone your age is doing it, you gotta do it too. Beyond these couple of movies, most of my Me Time is spent either reading, coloring or playing games with family. I realized in the first couple of days that there are so many empty bubbles in my day that I have enough time to my thoughts. I do not feel the need to avail that designated slot.

But my absolute favorite time of the day, that I look forward to as soon as I wake up and that makes me sad when it ends, is when I sit outside in my sehen on the big wooden jhoola [See exhibit E], with my big mug of green tea. Usually I am alone, and I make it a point not to take my book or my phone along. I just sit with my thoughts, listening and watching the birds sing happily. It gives me such peace and it helps me process all my emotions. I live for that part of the day. On the good days, its mends what’s broken, but even on the bad ones, it at least helps me identify what is broken in the first place that needs mending.

***

All I have told you above happens when the demographics of my house are normal i.e. when our house consists of us four permanent residents. But as of the past two weeks, my elder sister and her two kids have also moved in. And that has changed the routine dramatically. My nephew and niece are two rays of sunshine without whom my life would be dark and gloomy. Obviously, I love them to bits. But with kids also comes extra responsibility. There are fewer moments of silence, the house you put your sweat into cleaning doesn’t stay tidy for very long and your love compels you to dote on them and play with them, distracting you from your academic responsibilities. You tire emotionally and physically more quickly, and that takes some of that predictability you are used to away. But you don’t complain, nor do you regret, because like I said, you love them to bits. And here by “you”, I am of course referring to myself. It’s complicated (and I admit, at times frustrating), but its un-regrettable and I can’t be thankful enough for it.

Now you O Reader, may either be feeling glad for having finally reached the end of what I called my “ramble”, or you must be feeling sad for having traversed my lockdown story so sweepingly. Either way, I relished your imaginary company. But a word of caution before you leave. Don’t take me for my word. Perhaps I left some important details out, perhaps I covered up some ugly truths, perhaps I veiled my hell with an image of paradise. Or perhaps I am saying this now only to tease you. You’ll never know. The veracity of my claims will forever be a conundrum. One more thing, my real name is obviously not Rimaz Nami. Who would name their daughter that?! Definitely not my parents. Anyhow, farewell and God Speed, O Reader of the Future. A word of advice: take life as it comes, because it will come whether you want to take it or not.

Love,

R.N.

Karachi, April 20, 2020

Protagonist’s Profile

Name: Rimaz Nami

Gender: Female

Domicile: PECHS Block # 6, Karachi, Pakistan

Age: 23 years as of March 15, 2020

Household demographics: – Permanent residents: Rimaz Nami, her father, her mother and her younger sister. Visiting members from Lahore: her elder sister, nephew and niece.

Cultic Affiliations: Member of the Ottomans, Mughals and Safavids Spring-2020 batch, under the leadership of Dr. Taymiya Zaman