November 2019: Life as usual. December 2019: News mentions the spreading of a mysterious “illness” related to a seafood market in a city called Wuhan, located somewhere in China. At this point in time, I had never even heard of Wuhan, let alone cared much about what was happening there. Little did I know that this seemingly insignificant problem in a place far away, would soon send the whole population of the world reeling in shock, and all our lives as we know them, changed forever. On Thursday, 27 February 2020, we found out that the Sindh government had ordered educational institutes to be shut down. Yet, IBA kept up with the tradition of never being closed whatsoever the situation may be. After attending two classes, my friends and I decided to keep aside all the ambiguity and go out for lunch. There, we received an email that classes for that day and the following were suspended. We were so happy to be getting an unexpected holiday, and after dropping my friends back to campus, I ecstatically drove back home. At this point, I did not realise that the situation was bound to get worse, and that one unexpected holiday was the first in a series of unexpected events.
Unsurprisingly, the first and perhaps the most significant change this virus named COVID-19 caused, was to inhibit our physical movement. I was used to getting up and driving myself to university, coming back and complaining about the tiring day I had. After schools were closed and lockdown enforced, that suddenly stopped, and I didn’t know what to do. Similarly, all my family members—which include my parents, an elder and a younger brother—were used to spending some part of their day outside, doing something or the other. So, having to restrict themselves inside the house and that too, for an unknown period of time, was a huge change. In addition to our daily routines being shifted almost wholly to an indoor setting, another shift in our routine consisted of adopting a mandatory obsession with cleanliness and hygiene. There was a lot of sanitization and disinfection and protests if somebody expressed a desire to step out of the home.
Being restricted to home—and that too, under unfavourable circumstances out of choice resulted in many mentally unsettling worries. The constant bombardment of depressing news on the television and every social media platform made the initial days particularly overwhelming. Soon, I decided to make the conscious effort of not looking at any numbers and only to read positive newspaper reports, articles, and blogs. However, the realization that many people who live hand-to-mouth would be torn between earning their daily wages so they could have something to eat or staying at home so they could keep themselves safe from COVID-19 constantly remains with me and is quite unsettling and frustrating. Similarly, knowing that many people—especially those in the healthcare sector as well others that provide essential services, including my father, who works for K-Electric—must go out and perform their duties as usual while putting their lives at risk, makes the crisis even scarier. The week my father was in Balochistan, performing his duty, was an especially difficult one. When he returned, there was relief, but confusion and fear as well. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that there would come a time one would feel hesitation and fear going close to a family member. My father maintained a distance from us in case he developed symptoms of the virus. We finally heaved a sigh of relief when he didn’t, but there is always this thought looming that he would have to go back in a few days, and the cycle would have to repeat.
When the campus got closed and we started self-isolation, one of the things that got affected dramatically was my routine, especially my sleep schedule. Classes resumed soon i.e., during the first week of March. I thought that life would be relatively easier now as I would go back to having some semblance of structure in my life. That didn’t happen. Assignments and other academic responsibilities started to pile up but me being in vacations mode only exacerbated the problem. My productivity had decreased dramatically, and the sudden change from having to stick to a strict schedule to being home-bound in extremely distressing times, while trying to continue fulfilling my academic duties did take a toll on my mental well-being. When I got a break from my classes i.e. when IBA suspended online classes, I was quick to assume the responsibilities of cleaning in the absence of house-help. What started as doing my part in household chores, so my mom didn’t get overburdened soon turned into genuinely developing a fondness for all domesticated activities. I am now convinced that I am a natural at cooking and a chef resides in me, and I would like to believe that is one thing my brothers would agree with me on.
Getting busy with chores at home was a nice break, but I couldn’t help but dwell in sadness that my brother’s nikkah, for which we were all extremely excited, had to be postponed until the situation got better. Then I thought that my problem wasn’t even that significant and that I needed to get over it. So many people live hand-to-mouth and while the lockdown is necessary to ensure safety, I couldn’t begin to imagine how it would have affected them. For others, the threat of getting laid off would be looming over their heads. While these are certainly distressing and strange times, it gives us a lot to think about. I would have never thought that there would come a time in which having the choice to be able to stay safe at home without having to think where the next meal would come from, would be such a huge blessing and privilege.
Now that all the “busyness” has stopped, it has also given me a chance to recognize the things that I forgot that truly matter. I have spent more time talking with my parents, decluttering and cleaning, cooking and eating than I thought I could. Although technically, we have been instructed to engage in “social distancing,” I feel that I have tried even harder to connect socially with my friends and family. Almost every night, my cousins, nieces and nephew in Canada and Scotland, and I do a conference call and we talk about all sorts of things: food, the Pakistani dramas we have been watching, my Scottish nieces’ and nephew’s new-found craze for the Turkish drama series Diriliş: Ertuğrul and all the new Turkish words they have picked up. We reminisce the trip we all took to Turkey around this time last year and the great time we had even after we all flew to Pakistan, and dwell in sadness that neither can we take a trip to Spain like we had initially planned, nor can they visit Pakistan during the coming summer holidays. Nevertheless, we do try to look at the silver lining. We discuss the positive effects of the COVID-19 on climate change, talk about individual acts of kindness, and most importantly, how COVID-19 may have given us the perfect opportunity to recognize some of the major flaws of our lifestyle, current society and how this could be the only opportunity to revolutionize all its broken systems, to build a new and improved future.
Six months ago, everyone around the globe was going about their mundane lives. Today, we have been affected by COVID-19 in a way that our whole lives have been turned upside down. While I hope that we never have to see a time like this again, I also hope that once the pandemic is over and things go back to normal, we will continue to value things that these times have made us realise are more important.
–Areeba Wasim Khan
April 24, 2020, Karachi
