Dear Diary

March 19

I was alone at my rented apartment as one of my flatmates had gone home and the other was at office, for his employer hadn't declared a mandatory work-from-home policy until then. The clock struck 12 while I was on a conference call with my favourites. They wished me luck for the oncoming year. Waking up, I saw on the society app that our maid hadn't come that day. I called to check on her and found that she couldn't come because of a personal reason and that she was keeping well. However, entry of external help, including maid and cook, was banned a couple of days later. This enhanced safety for us, for them and added another set of tasks in my to-do list.

It was a day when most of the time on phone calls, which were otherwise meant for my birthday, went about in either me explaining my family members about the deadly COVID-19, or me and my friends talking about how our families back home were not taking it seriously at all. As a beautiful gesture, folks from my work place, all of who were also working from home, organised a remote cake cutting conference call. It helped us keep our minds off the negative vibe that was around. My mom also informed me how the police had cleared the local road side market today, in view of the virus.

March 20

Few more cases of the novel COVID-19 were detected in the country, thousands more across the world. Few cities and states in India imposed movement restrictions. Nobody followed it. Back in my hometown, there were zero official cases of the virus. Citing this, even though everybody preached that one should not go out but everybody still did. There was no fear as nobody understood the gravity. I tried my best to explain, but all in vain. I tried to scare, few understood. I barred my mom from going out.

March 21

My flatmate, who was at home, came back to Bangalore as per his plan. He entered the apartment and found the two of us making lunch. He first washed his hands without touching anything. He cleansed himself up with the little water that was available and changed into a fresh set of clothes. He joined us in making lunch. That day, we made rice and dal fry along with cucumber salad. My mom, a lot more stressed, checked again on whether I had reconsidered my decision to not go back home.

March 22

My flatmate, whose employer had then permitted working from home, has friends in the same society. He would ever so often be found there. However, times like these require us to amend our ways of living to effectively practise social distancing. Within our flat, I could be assured that no one is entering and that we maintain hygiene. However, we can't be sure about it when it comes to others. When my other flatmate and I didn't see this friend of ours, we realised he would have gone upstairs. We called him but no luck. Later in the evening, he came back. We confronted him and realised he was in a different society for almost 20 hours. We freaked, but who can educate an educated person?

I was pondering over what can be done to sort issues like the previous one. I had already accustomed myself to cook, clean the utensils and work for office: things that precautionary self isolation requires. But what could one do to ensure safety within the apartment? Additionally, my society, which depends on water tankers for all its needs, started to cut water supply for five hours every day to deal with the shortage of tankers. Next nightmare came when the sewage treatment plant broke and water quality degraded to beyond acceptable limits. Having discussed this with few of my friends, I was on the verge of flying back home.

March 23

As soon as I woke up, I thought of calling my mom to check on her views. Although I knew she would blindly ask me to come back, I wanted a healthy discussion including the risks associated with it. But before I could, I got a call from one of my siblings asking me to fly back home. In the previous 9 days of isolation, I never had this willingness to go home. I burnt a big hole in my pocket and booked a ticket for the next day. Later in the day, it was announced that domestic flights would only be functioning till the end of 24th March. I barely escaped. To add to my fears, Karnataka government announced that no vehicles would be allowed on road. After few rounds of discussion with my siblings and my friends (one of who was to drop me at the airport), we concluded that we would drive with relevant documents and try our luck.

March 24

It is 4 AM. My friend picks me up. We drive to the airport. My aircraft flies. I reach home. I don't touch anybody, anything. I sanitise my luggage. I wash my clothes properly. I take a shower. There's peace of mind. I relax a little and get back to my office work. There are news all over about lockdowns. Different countries trying different strategies. Different states imposing different yet similar restrictions. Everybody awaits PM Modi's speech at 8 PM. Few foresee the announcement, other don't. Few understand its criticality, others don't. Speech starts. "Aaj raat 12 baje se.." is repeated thrice. To begin with, 21 days it is!