“How will people eat?” she asked a world more deaf than her.

Safety is the luxury of not having to remind yourself to breathe.

Delhi is the place which gave me purpose, family, and home. But I am one of those people who has seen the skies of Delhi turn black, during my lifetime.

In fact, we were all just trying not to hurt each other.

It was as if the pandemic were a monster descending upon us.

… in the midst of a sentence, she stopped speaking. The silence was deafening.

A week into the lockdown, to the surprise of everyone, we were introduced to the world of virtual courts.

During the stay at home order, all of it came back, the anxiety and the trauma, and I had no strategy to deal with it.

And here I was, alone and craving physical intimacy; craving even a hug. I felt I was dying slowly.

One youth was limping, and on another’s leg was bruised. All seemed tired and not able to walk an inch further.

Confined to the house, my visions of what could have been became even more frequent and vivid.

I reach my fingers gingerly up to my forehead. It feels warm to the touch.

I was desperate for a non-screen activity to unwind, and I picked up the newspaper and thought, Why not?

I started to cry, not for Arvindan, but for the thousands of people who had been named simply as “migrants.”

I flit in and out of the room, hoping he will look up and maybe engage with me, with anyone.

The image of the homeless man eating leftovers from the street has never left me.

I have a lot of fear to overcome, before I can say those words to my child.

As I write this story, I come across a video of her singing and dancing last year, and I ask myself, has she really gone?

I was trying to avoid a conflict, but sometimes conflict is better than staying silent.

My son and daughter gradually accepted that “going out” was NOT happening sometime soon.

What does it take a women to leave an abusive relationship?

I shook myself from grief to live up to my family’s requirements.

Father and I don’t want to frighten her, so we have conveniently lied throughout the day.

It was my final move back to Cochin. Something about this quaint port city lurched in my heart.

It was the beginning of December, and all I could remember of 2020 was long periods of stress, misery, anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy.

It is 2:00 a.m. now, and I am sitting on a cold, metal bench next to the ICU.

I keep on thinking about how people, even near and dear ones, behave differently during a crisis.

What if you’re caught when you make the video call? What if he finds out? Is there really a way out?

Nothing in life, not even the fear and gloom of a pandemic, can dampen her spirits and her resolve.

The infected family members were already quarantined on the fourth floor of my house.

My friends, ten of them, had decided to come over to my place after our finals were over.

. . . from crisis comes learning, and from adversity comes opportunity.

I could empathize with what Madhavi was feeling– the roles had changed, but the situation was the same.

I enjoyed drifting into not having to speak to anyone for days and allowed the phone to keep ringing, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to make conversation.

As I was trying to fathom how the residents were negotiating the double blow of the pandemic and a natural disaster, a young girl, about ten years old, came running out from her house.

The road that I have been driving down for years through erratic traffic, the associated honking and city lights, was eerily quiet, dark and empty.

Depression consumed the heart, Darkness consumed the soul;

The sound of his voice took me into a flashback to last March, when so many migrants were stranded here…

It was the end of April, 2020. India was completing its second month of complete pandemic lockdown.

While my career was put on hold, my journey as a mother took a definitive turn.

For the first time ever, we have a relaxation therapy video doing its rounds in Mizo, the local language. Ah! It's one world!

The winter solstice marks my mother’s 89th birthday. I have watched her accept her dependent role.

There is no work in the tourism industry, but helping gives me hope and satisfaction.

. . . and I could notice a relaxation in those faces, like all the stress and pressure flying away leaving the blissful expressions.

while u sleep tonight, thousands sleep hungry in the city that never sleeps

I had to be strong, and I was ... But there was something happening beyond my understanding.

“You are not one of us. You are not aligned to those in power. You don’t belong here.”

Though it's usually impossible for me to stop my mind from ticking, I hardly had time to reminisce and reflect upon things.

“Didi, I have bad news to share,” she said.

We didn’t imagine in our wildest dreams that a one-month trip would turn into a tale of survival over many months.

The very thought of being all alone in the three room apartment on the fifth floor of a polluted, dense, and busy city gave me a fright.

I was exhausted and had promised myself a good sleep that night.

Never did the word 'negative' occur so differently to me.

“If you follow, it will fly, if you fly, it will follow,”

The pandemic has only strengthened my belief in the inherent goodness of humans.

On January 5th, my heart raced; the beatings multiplied as I took the test twice to confirm.

To beat the pressure, I started gardening. I did research on what to plant, at what time, and learned a lot.

I prefer not to call our conversations “sessions.” They are just casual chats with a young person who once poured her heart out to me.

This life is mine. I realized, only if I stay well will I be able to ensure the wellness of my family, friends, and community.

Apparently her relatives and some well-meaning community members had interpreted her turmoil as “the overreaction of a newly married girl,” and sent her back to her husband.

Terms like lockdown, quarantine, and social distancing have become the common parlance.

“You can tell us any story, but we won’t let you take the girl away from here,” another villager said.

I faced lot of humiliation and bad words because she was my relative, as if it was her fault. There were even attacks on social media.

Collecting and sharing the stories was not just another task for the studio, but a way I chose to keep myself afloat and nourished.

By the time we reached my dad, his condition had deteriorated, and his blood oxygen saturation level had dropped to 70%.

It was time for all of us to reflect and work on a different strategy.

As I entered a deserted airport around dawn, an emptiness loomed.

She said, “Oh yes, the jamun is very important– it decides the quality of the final product.

The gentle press of an iron through waxed paper binds the beads and makes the shapes complete, whole, fused.

She was armored

With mask and disinfectants

Stitching and sowing flimsy mosquito nets

With my store’s transactions going online, my “Lockdown Short” selected for online film festivals, and me creating ‘healing dance’ videos, I was content in my own locked-up world.

He has had passengers who were upset for various reasons, and he takes them through new routes for refreshments and delight to the eyes. Maybe, in some way, their hearts might absorb new air and get mended?

People around our neighborhood started becoming fussy around the doctor. We were worried not only about him, but about his grandmother. Slowly people started losing their minds.

My mother understands. She says, “We have made her capable of this, so she is doing what she always wanted, what we wanted; we have to support her.”

Somehow life seemed very fragile. Could we really ever return to the way things were, pre-COVID? Did we want to? Moving on, what intentions would I want to hold myself accountable to?