Relief turned into grateful tears as I entered home. I wanted to hug, or at least high-five my daughter as I walked in, but I was directly led into my room where I’d be quarantined for a week. A transition from prison to house arrest but a welcome transition indeed, I thought, putting the backpack in the corner and sprawling on the bed contentedly, absorbing the absolute and blessed silence for the first time in a week.
The room was convenient for isolation with the attached bathroom and toilet and a corner table to keep my plate and eat. The isolation had to be much stricter with my family’s determination not to let anyone else catch the infection. That meant no direct human contact. WhatsApp became the intercom and the defacto family tele-conferencing platform.
A knock on the locked door was all the indication I needed that mom was ready to serve me lunch or dinner. I’d keep the plate on the ground outside the door, close it and wait until my sister-in-law served the food and told me she was done. I’d open the door and retrieve the food laden plate and keep it on the table. Was it how the jailers served food to prisoners on solitary confinement? It wasn’t like anything I’ve done in my life.
Friday: “Is he alright?” I asked in concern to the news that uncle wasn’t coming home as scheduled.
“Some minor issues. He’ll be home tomorrow morning,” my brother responded. I felt he didn’t totally tell me what was happening but didn’t push the point. Uncle was well, after all, and needs a bit of time to get some minor medical issues addressed and return home. It should be ok, and I’d soon see my fellow corona warrior, or at least hear him from the next room.
I woke up to activities outside the room early on Saturday and knew straight away that my family was preparing to shift uncle back home and isolate him the room next to my own that also had a bathroom. I recalled the picture of uncle lying down with the oxygen mask strapped to his nose. If covid-19 posed a big challenge for someone who’s forty-seven and blind, it would’ve been an even greater ordeal for an eighty-four-year-old. It would’ve been a greater relief for someone like uncle to come home.
The YouTube playlist of the eighty’s Tamil songs ran in the background, as I sat nervously, trying to observe the movement in the hall outside. The building had been sealed down and I knew my brother was running his business from home, which meant his three mobile phones were going off almost continuously.
I reached down for my android phone to check time. “Twelve twenty PM” intoned the Eloquence Text-To-Speech voice. I was going mad, not knowing what was taking so much time to bring uncle home.
I summoned sis-in-law with insistent door knocks. “No news about uncle as of now,” she shouted through the closed door.
Just then, my iPhone rang, cutting off the music. I ran towards the bed, groped for the phone in frustration and finally managed to pick it up and tab frantically at the answer button.
“Ask Mahesh (my brother) to keep his phone free. I’ve been trying to call and…” I cut off Narasimhan and asked what was going on.
“Uncle’s dead,” he said without preamble.
“Are you sure? He…tested negative for covid-19. Is it not?” I asked a bit too loudly than intended.
“Yes. The doctor said he reported breathlessness about an hour back and was rushed into the ICU. The CPR procedure didn’t work,” he said.
I yanked open the door and shouted the news to my brother Mahesh. “Speak to Narasimhan. Speak right now. Uncle’s dead,” I told him.
“What?” he stopped his phone conversation and asked in confusion.
I took a step or two outside, momentarily forgetting my quarantine. “Yes, you heard me. Uncle’s dead. Call Narasimhan now,” I shouted again, before my daughter and sis-in-law reminded me to “get in.”
I stepped back into the room and collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. Pain tore away my heart and no matter how hard I buried my face in the pillow, I couldn’t escape the brokenness I felt inside. The initial confusion, shock and the adrenalin surge gave way to grief and hurt. Life sometimes gives us a false sense of comfort and assurance, only to brutally blindside us at the most inopportune time.
Even as the grief of losing my fellow warrior engulfed me, I couldn’t help thinking if my recovery was also false. Because uncle tested negative for covid-19 and died unexpectedly, just when it appeared, he was almost totally recovered from the deadly infection. Was it possible to survive covid-19 and die suddenly?
I hurried up to my laptop and googled about deaths that happen after a patient tests covid negative. About 12,000 results flooded my screen. When I read coronavirus attack cells in blood vessels, cause inflammations and result in heart attacks. Some researchers insisted that it should be treated as a multi-system disease.
At 5 pm, my brother and cousin Narasimhan sat in an ambulance carrying uncle’s body that headed towards the crematorium. While uncle had tested negative, doctors adviced against taking his body home straight from a covid hospital. Someone at the grounds turned on the WhatsApp video in the group and we all watched uncle’s body being consigned to flames from our respective homes.
I didn’t go there…I couldn’t. The damn virus tied me to the room and there was no way I could say a proper goodbye to my fellow covid warrior, who followed his wife of 58 years to the other world in just 26 days.
If I had fears about what would happen to me, I probably have to live with it. And, with the memory of the worst summer of my life, a summer of disease, suffering and death. I’ve never come across so many deaths, taking place one in almost four or five days.
Even as I write this, I’m grieving from the passing of my favourite singer SP Balasubramanyam, the ophthalmologist Dr K Ravi, who diagnosed my eye condition, some of my friends’ relatives, community leaders and government officials. Those surviving like me are unable to shake off the memory of the infection.
Whenever someone dismisses the virus as a joke or a government conspiracy, I feel like grabbing his shoulders and shake him until he gets some sense back. I feel like shouting to the world “DON’T TAKE CORONAVIRUS LIGHTLY”.
I wouldn’t like anyone to experience what I did in that hospital and feel the pain of loss as I did just last month.
If you feel my grief, hear my plea, you will test for coronavirus early, isolate yourself, wear a facemask when you go out and protect your family and your community. Remember, we’re fighting a killer disease that had already caused a great deal of devastation in the world.
Stay safe, stay positive and help those fighting coronavirus. The battle isn’t over yet.
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