Lockdown Love

While I was going through my morning routine of pretending to work out on the balcony, I noticed a truck pull in the building opposite to mine. As they began unloading the stuff, I gave up even the pretences of working out, mentally marked it as yet another cheat day. I leaned over the railing and looked right towards the truck, my attention now solely on the luggage being unloaded. I bent over the rails and began judging someone else’s houseware; “that’s a big refrigerator” , “classy sofas”, “who even uses window AC anymore!”. Neha’s call for breakfast broke my highly entertaining and equally pointless mental conversation and I realised that I was already behind schedule, even when I was now saving an hour by not having to travel to work.

I hurriedly finished breakfast, poured a bucket of water over my head, calling it a bath and settled in my makeshift WFH terminal (WFH terminal: fancy word for a desk, chair and laptop setup, haphazardly put together, sometimes lacking either a chair, a desk or both but never the laptop). I opened said laptop and checked yesterday’s Covid infection numbers, amazed at how quickly it was spreading. The rest of the day passed in a daze between figuring out how to work remotely, how to get work done remotely and frequent helpings of tea.

At about 6 PM, there was a buzz about the PM addressing the nation at 8. With almost spontaneous flashbacks of a similar address 3 years back, I persuaded Neha to go on a scrounging mission to the nearby grocery store. Disappointingly, we were late and it seemded to have already been run over. As luck would have it, we lived in a locality full of bachelors who could not look beyond their Maggis and Oats and Eggs. So, the back of the store was as untouched as ever, aisles brimming with flour and milk and vegetables, a true Ram rajya.

We loaded the trolley to the risk of a breakdown and stood in line, patiently waiting for our turn. Suddenly, I realised something, told my wife to get the billing done herself as I ran out, risking a week of disapproving taunts. The queue here was long and getting longer by the minute. By the time I reached inside, it looked like it had been visited by rioters. However, I hustled and scrapped, bought as much as I could and walked back triumphantly with a crate of beer and 5 bottles of hard liquor with special consideration for the wife’s poison of choice, Gin. I did not expect any accolades for this adventure and did not receive any either, until 8 PM that is. As Modiji uttered the words “lockdown” I was briefly the best husband in the world, having arranged not only for food but for drinks as well.

We stayed up late through the night as we tried to plan our days and divide our chores. There was fear but also some bit of excitement for having to stay at home and just be with one another for a while. This excitement wore off quickly the next morning as the two white collar workers realised that planning for and executing something do not follow the same laws of nature. For instance, the slotted time for preparing breakfast may have been 10 mins but I spent those looking for salt and pans. The cleaning of house was scheduled for late in the evening but that required me to get up from the chair and physically hold a broom; something I was too tired and lazy to do.

The next morning was her turn so I went back to the balcony, partially to focus on a workout, but mostly to avoid any small bits of work by pretending to be occupied. As I finished the warmup and leaned on the grill for a break, I happened to glance towards the newly occupied apartment. And I almost lost my balance in surprise. There she was, enjoying a cup of tea in her balcony. The only one who laughed at my goofy jokes, the one who shared my love of tea, the one I was supposed to adopt a dog with, my first love, Trishna.

It could not be, I reasoned, I must be mistaken. It’s been 10 years, I probably could not even recognise her. But I could and I did. Her intricately made up hair, her tender, albeit somewhat aged face, her tilting of the head backward after every sip, as she enjoyed swirling the tea around her mouth were unmistakable. Too shocked to react, I did what I had been good at doing all my life. I stepped out of her view and quickly went back in to avoid any moment of recognition, pleasant or awkward. As I went through Zoom meetings, my mind kept wandering to those three years, springing back to the present when my name was mentioned and I hastily covered up by asking the colleague to repeat the question. The internet connection was highly unstable that day. While my colleagues spoke about GMV and APIs and integrations, I day dreamt about a bike, road trips and drunken nights. The dreams continued through my sleep as well. Friday was my turn to cook breakfast and it came as a relief. It was better to not see her until I had processed the information, I reasoned so decided to avoid the balcony through the day, but ended up spending my day exactly like the last one.

Now arrived Saturday, our day of freedom and I could daydream without any guilt. So, I made up my mind to confront the situation and went out to the balcony. She was looking the other way. I suppressed the wave of relief rising inside me with steely resolve, I waved to get her attention. She looked. I could notice her expression change from confusion to shock and finally, to my joy, happiness. She was happy to see me! If it were not for the lockdown, I am sure some violinists would have manifested behind me.

We tried to communicate by gestures but could not get much across. She may have meant that she had moved here recently or that she was going to jump off the balcony. On my part, I did little more than jump around, waving my arms, the international signal for a panicky “save me”. But the purpose of the meeting was achieved with some icing. She knew I was here and was glad to see me. I had a spring in my step for the rest of the day, floating in a happy daze as I accepted all the household work asked of me without even a grumble. By the next week, we had calibrated our times on the balcony to make sure we saw each other everyday. I even took a bad deal on other household chores to get away from making breakfast so I could see Trishna.

You may have heard that couples found it difficult to get through the lockdown, having been confined in one space, forced to be around each other 24X7, sharing work they had never done before. This becomes more so if one of them has an ex for company, even if from afar. The strain was telling on us. We would go about our work, communicating when absolutely necessary, both vary of the volatile atmosphere brimming with tension and discontent as the room was never completely clean or the plate had a spot left or there were just too many clothes for laundry. No conversation meant that we even spent our evenings alone. I had claimed the balcony and she, the living room.

With no interference from her, I even dared to invite Trishna to spend an evening the way we spent our mornings. Albeit with drinks in hand in stead of tea. She did not have any, she signalled. I offered to throw some beer her way. She was as crazy as she used to be and agreed. I, in my enthusiasm to impress her, threw one straight through her balcony’s glass door, which shattered to bits. I turned red with embarrassment but she laughed, gestured it was ok and asked for another since there wasn’t any more damage I could inflict anyway. I obliged. In that moment, I knew that this was definitely going somewhere.

The lockdown kept getting extended, and I checked each update with a mix of apprehension and optimism. I was stuck in a quandary. If the lockdown is extended, we could continue with our little arrangement but if it is lifted, I had a chance to meet her, no matter how risky it was. After a month and half, the balance had tilted towards my desire to meet her and unlike my opinions on his other policies, Modiji obliged. The restrictions eased up with people free to move in a limited manner.

News and social media flooded with stories of how couples, parents and children and other relations separated due to lockdown, were able to meet after long last. I wanted to script my own such story as well but without it reaching any platform. My mind went back to our first few weeks when we intricately planned our clandestine meetings to ensure it remained a secret. With the same rigour, I began planning the meet, right from asking her to meet, and cooking up an excuse to disqualify my place for the meet. With a proper plan in place (I’d tell Neha that the car’s battery was dead and needed replacement. It might actually have needed one and I’d be caught when the car would actually be needed but I decided to cross the lie when we reached it), I decided to ask her the next day.

I woke up earlier than usual in anticipation, trimmed my beard and rehearsed my gestures. “For someone always struggling with speech, gestures were going to be easier than speaking”, I told myself to add some confidence. Prepped and ready, I stepped into the balcony to see her seated at her usual spot. Next to her was another chair, occupied by a man, and behind them, a toddler sat in a baby chair sucking on her thumb, completing the perfect family picture. I stood there, frozen. I noticed her glancing at me from the corner of her eyes and immediately looking away.