A letter from the future (after a 3 year lockdown)

 

My Dear,

 

As we complete 3 years of shutting ourselves in, I thought of writing this to you, not because we are apart, but because we may read this on a day in the future when we want to look back at our best during the worst of times.

As home and office blended with each other and as the days and nights blended together, I am happy to be still working, more than working, I am glad I am still alive and that we are still a family, staying intact. I never thought I will miss my commute through these Pune roads, but there it is, I do miss the long journey to the office and back, I miss that bad canteen food, and to my surprise, I miss some people at work too (no, I am not going to name them nor am I going to say why I am surprised). But these are good problems to have, no?

Over these 3 years, we have come closer, we got to know each other better, we support each other in all we do, small and big. Our early thoughts and fear that spending more time alone, just the two of us, would only breed contempt proved to be wrong, rather happily. Of course, we get to see the rest of the world only through a zoom

I do not know how much longer we need to go on like this, do not know when we will have a vaccine or a pill to feel safer, to get out, and go back to what we used to call normal. We are tired of news of a miracle or a miracle medicine and have in fact stopped believing in all such news. We just brace for the lockdowns, one after the other. We shut out all data of the disease and the details of how many died. We just think of, ‘what to cook for dinner’ (with what little we have) or ‘what to watch on NetFlix or Prime’. We just take one small challenge at a time; we just look at each day on its own. After all these years, we have started to live in the present. A Zenish, mindful living; some would call it.

Yes, we have changed in other ways too, mostly for the good, we have learned to be frugal, right from what we eat, and to any other resource we use. We have learned to be thankful for trivial things. We are healthier than ever before.

Still, when I see the photos you have kept on display or when I hear the sound from the conch shell (which I found while cleaning the house), I slip back in time and recall how the waves used to wet our feet again and again, how you used to run those grains of sand through your fingers. Most of all, I yearn to just sit with you, and watch the full moon bathe the Shore Temple and turn the sea to silver… just, one more time.

 

Love,

K

July 17, 2023.