Category: Articles

Locking Down But Not Away

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I sit here wanting to express my thoughts out onto the screen. The fingers move across the keyboard and I want to express everything on my mind. Then I wonder if this is for me or whether this will be read by other people. This is just another way of venting out grief that seems to be shredding me from within. People think that with the passing of time grief and pain become easier to bear. I stand witness with those people. Because I have been through hell and back with many episodes of death and loss, I know that I survived through it all. Time is a great healer. But what people tend to forget is that time is relative, just like pain is relative.

Einstein spoke about it a long time ago. One minute with a loved one seems like a minute, one minute under the dentist’s drill seems like an hour. Pain for me is a constant. It was unbearable a month ago. I felt as though my insides were being torn apart and I was physically being drawn and quartered. For my family, I tried doing things that I was before my heart broke. I went through the motions. I tried to prevent the number of times I broke down before them. My aunt keeps asking me, ‘how are you today?’ and I have told her to not do so. I know she is worried about me – my mom, sis, partner all are … but we all think that if outwardly the wounds do not show, they are healing.

I let them think that. It’s easier on them.

My best friend tells me I have to think about myself. I have to strengthen my heart. Stop repeating love. But I also know that people are not capable of change. They are capable of trying to change. They are capable of adapting. If I move to Canada, I’ll never like the climate. But I will learn to live with it. I will always be someone who loves the heat more than the cold though. For love, I will be capable of doing so. And when my heart breaks, I will not be able to get rid of the pain so easy.

One very important reason being that I do fall in love easily. But when I do, I am all in. Forever. Falling out of love is a phrase I have never believed in. If someone does fall out of love, I don’t think they really understood what it means to love, in the first place. Break ups happen because we forget to think about the other. We put ourselves first. We tend to confuse self-respect with being selfish. We confuse love with self-love. Our world has become so politically correct, that there is now a back lash against it with the upliftment of autocracy. We have forgotten that the world is made of different people, different organisms. We have to accept that there will be differences, and accepting the differences makes us humane. Sympathy is not the same as empathy.

The days pass by, and I had two lovers. I have always been open about my heart. I have always been honest, not just with myself, and with the people I love, but with the world, to whom I owe not a great deal of explanation. Today, I sit alone. Heart break and death have taken away what I cherished. I do look at the spaces I am left with. I see my mother, my kids, my sister, my aunt. All who rally around my grief and try to lift me out of it. My grief is selfish – and where there was a flood, there is now a quagmire. It’s like a black hole. Anything I put in, gets swallowed.

Yet, I also know that the panic attacks have stopped. The breathlessness takes over in bursts, and is over soon. I go onto social media, because diverting my mind and energy, in a state of lockdown is all I am left with. I have reached out to those who care. But in time, their caring wanes, because their lives do not stop just because mine has come to a grinding halt in space and time. The lockdown happens within now. Because I am tired of also reaching out, and repeating the grief, that has drained me.

Strangers ask me to smile, be the person social media has come to know me as… My family wishes me to just be me. But I am not me, right now. Right now, I am a wound. The wound was raw. Now it just seethes. It hasn’t closed. Not by a long shot. If it is touched, it throbs and I cry out. But I have learnt the art of bandaging. So, people can see the bandaging, they have no clue about what’s happening underneath it. They may choose to address it. They may not. It doesn’t matter really. Because love itself caused the wound, I can hardly expect the healing to come from any other than my own capacity to love.

Have I learnt from this? I have learnt that I have what it takes to withstand it. Grieving has made me sure of my capacity to love. My heart will not freeze. It is not capable of it. It can never build a castle of ice. It can never solidify. And I will never apologize for being able to keep loving who I have loved. I will never feel sorry for the fact that I will be able to love again.

Quarantined

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Sitting at the computer, after completing a shit ton of work, I turned to my dog who had yawned. He looked at me sleepily. I wondered how life is for him. At the moment, because of the lockdown, there is no life. He is confined in these walls just as I am. But I have other things to keep me company. I have my television, my computer, my books, my blogs, my art, my camera, my phone and social media. What does he have? Me.

He has always had just me. So, I really look at him. I gave him a hug. I want him to know that I am sorry that I had not paid him enough attention. Even now, as I write this, I am not giving him attention. He is right at my feet. Dozing off again.

This is generally the life we lead. A life where we strive to earn money, where we try to look our best for people online who we will never really ever meet. Family will pass by, and we will see our pictures together with a sense of nostalgia. Carpe Diem, is something that is just taught to us in literature. I try very hard to live each day as it comes… but I never really manage to live up to its full potential. Or mine, for that matter.

However, this is not a post about dejection and lost chances. Even locked in my home, for nearly a month, won’t really make me bored. I have plenty of things to do. How do I make this worthwhile for my kiddos though? There are many websites that will tell me stuff to do with them. Maybe, all I need to do is spend some time with them. I guess that is generally what everyone wants, isn’t it?

I want people I love to spend time with me. I want them to notice me and give me a hug. I want to hear about their feelings. But I also don’t want to get into an argument – which is always a danger with human beings. I would like people to be kinder. Hell, it doesn’t have to be some stranger – just give someone you love a compliment. Tell them that you would like to be in their company. Give them a smile.

Covid-19 has struck at the heart of humanity. It’s literally taken life’s breath. We are social animals. We want to be with other people. Mix around and talk and share thoughts. We can still share thoughts, but physical distancing is so heart breaking. Not to a haphephobic, of course, but hey, you get what I am trying to say. That being said, who else is to blame for this catastrophe but us?

Look at what we have done to the world we live in. We have taken it from granted. So the world has decided to encapsulate us into our own homes. Just thinking about a polar bear, on a broken piece of ice, stranded in the middle of an ocean, makes me want to yell. Yell out at the people who don’t pay enough attention to this tragedy. Most people I know would not be able to relate. It’s just a glacier breaking into the sea. It’s just another forest fire. It’s just another virus. They think that it’ll all pass without serious repercussions.

Maybe that is true when one thinks of the world in an existential dynamic. It’s just been a couple of weeks of human beings staying put and the world is beginning to breathe. There are wild animals walking about unafraid. The wind is cleaner. The stars brighter. The world will go on. Of course, it will. With or without humanity still in the dynamic, that is a whole different argument. But seriously though: how hard is it to stop using plastic? To conserve water? To use a dustbin? To feed a stray animal? To get out of your fucking cocoon of self-importance?

But enough of this lecture. I believe that if someone is worried about the way things are, he will make the call to do something about it himself. Nothing anyone can say or do can make people, who do not want to listen, listen. So I am going to shut up and go and sit with my doggo who deserves my attention.

Poo Tales

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

When you overestimate the intelligence of people, and you ask something of them which they misconstrue, you can have a catastrophe on your hands. Literally. After the Prime Minister’s speech, wherein he asked people to stand in their windows and balconies, and applaud the working communities of medical, public service personnel, people received a very different message.

At five o’clock, on 22nd March, in many areas of the country, people came out in crowds, banging on vessels and sometimes their own heads. Social distancing – the need of the hour – was completely forgotten. Some of my acquaintances, on Instagram, even believed that after the “Janta Curfew”, Covid-19 had been defeated! I had a couple of arguments on this issue, saying that eradicating the virus, after a 12-hour break from public life, was certainly impossible. Then, when it all fell on deaf ears, I gave up.

The point of this article are my kids. Zach is now seven years old. A beautiful brindle boxer who loves going down and playing with his toys. Xena is now six years old, a flashy fawn. She loves playing and taking away toys from Zach. My family and I make sure they are taken down, four times a day. However, now because of the quarantine disregard, things are going under curfew. My family and I respect the need of the hour. However, that being said, how do I explain this to Zach and Xena, my kids?

When you have human children, you can ask, cajole, bargain and explain. How do I do this with Zach and Xena? Early last year, I would take them to the terrace of my building to get them some exercise. However, there are certain people in my society, as I am well-aware there are out there in the world, who do not take kindly to animals. They look down upon people who keep them as family and they think animals are meant only in forests, cages or on plates. So, a complaint was shot down to the secretary and he banned us from taking the kids to the terrace.

At this point, I must strongly interject that Zach and Xena have never defecated in the environs of any society where I have lived. They have learnt to respect their spaces and in fact, run right out of the colony compound to pee and then after they play a bit in the garden, head out for a walk when they poo. (And, yes, we pick the poo up, too – which also brings to mind, the fact that there are no dustbins provided by the BMC in our area – but that is a topic for another day.)

I know only animal lovers will understand this plight of not being able to take your kids out for walks. These walks are also not for play time but for their basic requirements to relieve themselves. We are incredibly understanding of children incapable of understanding restrictions. Why do we not extend – if not the same – an adequate level of understanding for animals at home? Most of us, turn away at the sight of animal abuse. A man boiling a dog alive for food is revolting. A man tying a cow down and beating her head in with a gas cylinder is filmed too. Cruelty exists. But aren’t other human beings capable of showing empathy? We scroll away from such videos. We report them. We choose to be vegan. Can we also not help those people who have pets at home?

Maybe by just letting us take the kids up to the terrace for a breath of open air. I won’t be taking them to a party, or even with more family members. They can run around for a bit with me on the terrace and then I can bring them down. I can wear my mask, practice my own social distancing, and take them down for a short walk so they can do what is needful. But this cannot be done without more people understanding this. I know they won’t because people don’t trust other people to do what is right. I also understand this, because I have seen how hordes of people descended out in public places, just yesterday, at 5pm, to bang their heads, completely negating protocol measures. So, where does this leave my kids?

When I was raising them, they were both trained to use the loo. Xena would use it without a problem. She still uses the loo to pee, sometimes during the winter. But Zach refuses to do so. He being a gentleman, prefers going out. He cannot raise his leg in the bathroom. And to date, since he was two months old, has never used the loo to defecate. He looks at me almost to say, I don’t ask you to squat down in the garden to poo, why are you asking me to squat in your bathroom?

I know a lot of people will tell me that, once he really needs to really go, he will.

Perhaps.

He probably will learn to use the loo, before many human beings out there learn that staying at home for 14 hours won’t annihilate Covid-19.