Journal (Recovery Phase of Covid-19 pandemic)

Recovery Phase of Covid-19 pandemic

I had developed anxiety due to multiple reasons from April, 2020 onwards. It was because of negotiations with tenants and mom in Delhi over call, the recovery of stock market, improper eating habits, the usual workplace stress and my personal development activities.

Sanjay Kumar (the difficult tenant) left by first week of May. He had been fooling around with his words and promises to my mother, Nirmal aunt and myself. I knew that he was not a man to be trusted but it was other people who needed to learn it and learn from this experience so I had given my mom some freedom in this situation to handle Sanjay as she thought fit.

Due to lockdown, the parantha vendors such as Bachu Ram and Sagar were not opening shops. Ajit Punjabi hotel was okay to begin with. They served the same food in both lunch and dinner. I would bring the food to my room and eat it there. I have a pretty good capacity to eat same food recipe for three to four weeks. And by the end of these three to four weeks, I had started with packet food such as MTR food packets for upma, poha, vermicelli, maggi, etc. As part of all this, I had gained some basic idea of cooking. Even it was essentially chopping onion and chillies, frying them and then boiling the packet food with it. By July, a doctor told me that I had protein, vitamins and minerals deficiency. From there onwards began the time for nutraceuticals, supplements and complete overhaul of eating habits.

By August, my family had started calling again for marriage. Mansi's dad had started calling Mayur Vihar asking for me. Grandma was calling me, Srishti was calling me, aunt was calling me and if I would not pick up their call, mom would be calling me to that Srishti called her to let me know that she was trying to reach me. The crazy part was when Chunnu (Praveen) uncle from Tri Nagar was calling me from Tri Nagar's house and he was there multiple times and would call me to tell me to call grandma. He would be telling me to get married, which was ridiculous as we have never spoken more than a hi or hello on certain occasions (such as Anu's wedding) before.

I was not having clarity about where to meet Mansi's dad this time. I did not have a house, I did not have the money for a wedding, the job security had reduced because of the pandemic, Delhi was a Covid-19 hotspot even if I wanted to travel, the buses were not operating, I was not in good health. I had every reason to not pursue a marriage proposal at that time. Plus, Mansi and I had never spoken except for that one meeting at her house in February. Then suddenly out of the blues there was this urgency to have a wedding. On one evening in mid of September, I got a call from an unknown number, it was Mansi. I was sitting in the park on a bench and relaxing around 6:30 in the evening. We spoke for an hour or so. I gave her some updates about my job and that time was not very good to carry out these meetings her dad was asking for. I had asked her if she was in a hurry. She said 'no'. She asked me if I had found someone else, I told her 'no' that was not the case and asked her if she had found someone else. To which she replied that 'no, she has not found anyone and that she is not in a hurry and it was her mom who was wondering that.'

In last week of September, I told her dad that I would travel in October citing genuine work related reasons. Her dad gave me the date of 17th October. In a text message sometime in October, I asked her dad on WhatsApp text about where to meet this time and whom was he expecting to meet as my sister is in US, and he had already met my mom.

In the week leading to 17th October, Mansi's dad had not been picking my calls. I for the first time tried texting Mansi on WhatsApp to check about her dad and she had put a profile photo of her face from the sideways with a big earpiece. Oh boy, that was a mover. She didn't reply to my messages. Her dad was not picking my calls. Then a day or two later her dad took my call, he said that he was traveling to Panipat to visit his uncle in sick health and that he would call me back in two or three days after his uncle stabilizes. On one day in this three-day long wait, around 11 PM when I was in bed to sleep, Mansi texted me, "buddy, mine is fixed" (yaar, mera fix ho gaya hai) with a laughing emoji with a bead of sweat. I said 'congratulations' and went to sleep.

Since March, I had hoped Mansi would call or text to ask if things were okay. She didn't. I had started to accept this silence since having once written to her dad to send Holi wishes. There wasn't that spark, that feeling, that inner calling that she was the one. It was her education, work and family that appealed to me. All this long, her dad was moving things around. He started off again in August because he thought that the time was auspicious. There were a number of festivals I had given a miss to (such as Rakshabandhan and Dussehra), which he thought were good occasions to take things forward. In October, Navaratri was to begin on 17th and end on 25th. When he told me this, I was not aware that Jains also look towards Navaratri for making decision. 

As part of my work life, I had been on bench code for 45 days till first week of October and my new project in October had kicked off well. It was a big relief. All of a sudden by the end of October things had turned out to be moving forward again. There were no hussles of getting married, the job was okay, the health was beginning to improve and pandemic lockdown restrictions were being lifted in phases (we were in Unlock 5.0 in October).

Title: Journal (Recovery Phase of Covid-19 pandemic)