“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.