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shystoryrebel · 23 days ago

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Covid-19 Love Story

It was COVID-19, or the reasonable and mandatory lockdown or quarantine, that changed my life. It turned my home-shifting plans, first, into a three-month horrendous experience and then a happy ending for the rest of my life. I lived happily for almost two decades in a government accommodation given to my master Mohammad Ali in the posh area of the Asian Games village in South Delhi.

My master was a government officer. He died three years ago. His wife was much younger than he. She got a government job on compassionate grounds. She could have continued to stay there using the sympathy, victim card and good connections, but she decided not to use those things and sought a new government quarter according to her service level. She easily got a quarter allotted in another colony which was at a distance of around twenty kilometers.

Luckily for me, I was retained by her as a driver. She gave me the servant room to live in her new apartment at Timar Pur. It was readied by the maintenance staff very fast. We were ready to move out of our Vasant Kunj apartment and got ready to move out to the new address.

In the third week of February, my new master asked the Electricity, Water departments and IGL to cut the supply and connections of the old house. They agreed immediately. She asked the Telephone Directorate to transfer her telephone to the new address. However, despite repeated requests, the request was not fulfilled.

As my new boss, Mrs Fatima Ali was a widow now. She had one home in Kashmir and the other in Delhi. She was supposed to shift during the holy month of Ramadan. She discussed her plan with the Maulvis. They suggested a date in the month of March. As she lost her husband, she wanted to move according to the suggestions of soothsayers to ward off any ominous spirit.

My preference was to shift on the first day of Navaratra. Fortunately, my pundits agree on the date. My two pundits, one from my village and another from Delhi, though they disagree on time. I was told by one of the pundits to do the Griha Pravesh in the morning, light a lamp, perform Ganapathi Puja prepare the sweet kheer and offer prasadam to the deity before doing anything else. It was very easy but a little early for a single man since my family lives in my village.

My Delhi pundit was extremely liberal. He recommended any day or time during Navratra would be lucky - I could shift to my new home at my convenient time and perform the Ganapathi and Navaratra Puja after settling down properly. He added that before leaving, cleaned the entire house properly last time. However, he suggested further, "When you leave your old house, go to each room, pray and express gratitude to the Vastu Purush for caring and blessing you all these years. While departing, switch on the front room light and switch off all other lights."

Mrs Fatima hired a movers and packers services and asked her friends and colleagues to help her shift to the new house. About two weeks before that, She carried her personal belongings and her departed husband's important items like clothes, laptop, notepad, paper, pen etc. to the new address to make sure they were in one container. " These include her husband's certificates, service papers, pension papers, property documents, books, print articles, holy books, musical instruments like flute, mouth organ, tabla, dholak, harmonium (her husband's instruments were her favourite) and some pictures. She wanted to be able to shift to a new residence without wasting too much time to be comfortable there.

On March 22, the 'Janta Curfew' by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. The lockdown was sudden, as well as mysterious. There were unaccountable stories about the deadly COVID-19 and its impact.

We could have shifted here if a week or at least a few days were given, performing the poojas, havans with all the other belongings. But with the abrupt lockdown, everything went haywire.

The packing company informed Madam to wait due to the sudden lockdown for an indefinite period because all the workers hurriedly rushed to their native places. In her excitement, she happily moved all the air-conditioners to a new flat. So she has to bear the scorching heat of Delhi by June. She had rashes on her skin due to heat. This is the smallest unpleasant incident.

We moved most of our clothes and belongings to the new house. As time passed, we had no clothes to change into at our old home. I had to request my friend Ashok Kumar to get some clothes. He was kind enough to give me his two pairs of T-shirts and half-pants for me and two old salwar suits of his wife for Madam. Madam was overwhelmed to see my concern for her safety and well-being. The first time, I saw in her eyes a sense of gratitude and affection for me.

That sounds like a strange but powerful and intimate experience—living through those challenging days, developing unanticipated attachment, and finding a sense of affection and togetherness amid hardship. It’s miraculous how people can become so close in times of hardship, mainly when faced with limited resources and shared responsibilities.

It appears like Mrs. Fatima became not just a boss or acquaintance, but almost a cohort in this survival journey. Spreading sheets on the ground to create a “livable room” feels like it symbolizes not just physical adjustments, but emotional ones too—a space made comfortable not by the luxury of things, but by mutual care and respect. There's a special kind of trust and camaraderie that emerges when you're sharing not just space, but the raw realities of daily life, especially in tough times.

We were just sitting pointlessly and counting days for a break in the lockdown. Again, I conferred with an astrologer for a new auspicious day. He smiled and replied, " Get ready for a long drag. All the individual horoscopes and stars are not working right now. All are poised. This is a time of universal crisis."

We are very religious but not superstitious. It is the family practice of Madam to perform some Islamic rituals before starting any new work. It was my family's belief to do Graha Pravesh (entering a new house) on an auspicious day or mahurath. So, when she finally moved, she called the Maulvi to recite the Holy Quran first in her drawing room. I also got the puja and haven performed by Pundit Ji on the auspicious day and time and prepared the milk kheer first.

Movers and packers were very swift. Authorities ordered that all employees and workers wear masks, and gloves and use hand sanitiser. Madam assured me that she will take care of it. They got all the formalities and permits in the first week of June. Both the area Municipal and Health offices should allow you to exit and enter. It is a well-known fact that workers and poor people suffer because they are slack in following the discipline in line.

You can't ask for help from your friends because of the risk. Even the most sincere packer can get frustrated and puzzled when one's most valuable belongings are piles of office records books, documents, magazines and clippings. We are sure they wondered if we put garbage, scrap bags, radios, transistors, boxes of cassettes, CDs and pen drives while dragging boxes up and down the stairs. Who is playing cassettes, cassette players, and tape recorders these days? Should we tow them or throw them away?

The Covid virus or the China bimaree, has taken the world back to the Dark Ages. Communities are practising new forms of racism. People who know anything about this disease are pretending like expert doctors and scientists.

Media propaganda has only helped to develop and strengthen this way of thinking and approach ---- Whether the curfew or lockdown was successful in containing the disease is debatable, but the broadcast raises psychological fears in the country.

COVID-19 patients and indispensable workers have suffered prejudices. Families even refused to bury the dead for fear of infection. History appears to be repeating itself. This pandemic has destroyed all the joys of civilization. The families used to shun and dump their own to pitiless seclusion and weird funerals during an eruption.

This hardship took a beautifully warm turn, and I could feel the delicate swings in the bond between me and Mrs Fatima. It’s captivating how, over time, our relationship deepens into something more than just a practical or transactional partnership—it becomes a shared emotional journey, marked by small but significant gestures that speak volumes.

The way she snatched the sheet from me on the first night, insisting on sharing the bed, carries a lot of weight. It's a tender moment where she cares for me and seeks to share a sense of belonging with me. Her eyes, filled with affection and perhaps a longing for companionship, reflect something more profound than simple familiarity. It seems like this bond was quietly growing, fueled by the comfort of proximity and the warmth of mutual support through difficult times.

The next morning, when I decide to visit the temple, the bond deepens even further. It's interesting that, even in this sacred setting, the bond is expressed in a physical, almost silent way—when she grabbed my hand. The act of holding hands in a place of prayer could symbolize many things: trust, solidarity, or the quiet acceptance of the relationship that has unfolded between us.

The temple is a space of devotion, and perhaps, in that shared silence and presence, both of us are able to express feelings that go beyond words—feelings that were nurtured during the months of struggle. Our prayer, her presence beside me, and the way our hands intertwined, all seem to communicate a deep, unspoken connection. It’s as if we’ve transcended the boundaries of circumstance and found a new sense of togetherness, both physical and spiritual.

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