When globalisation began, we were told that we now live in a global village. That the world as we knew it had shrunk. No that it had become any smaller, but with the increasingly intricate interwoven web of networks we started to develop, it sure felt much smaller. Like everything was suddenly within reach. That technology and the internet would connect everyone to everyone else. That we would all finally come together like the one big happy planetary family that we were always meant to be. So, how do you think that played out? Feel free to draw your own conclusions about that, because that’s not what this piece is about. This piece is about another moment when my world shrunk, in a much more real way.
2020. The year the world stood still. Who knew when the year began, that it would only be the first in many years of a worldwide pandemic the likes of which we haven’t seen in over a century. Turns out that these interconnected networks we so painstakingly built to take anything and anyone anywhere they wanted to go anytime could also take things we don’t want going around. A tiny virus brought our cities to a halt. Nations around the world announced strict measures that would have been unthinkable in any other circumstances—lockdowns shutting down every major city around the world, barriers to international and local travel, mask mandates, and emergency protocols. And suddenly years of connections broke down completely. The world shrunk. My world shrunk.
Four walls and a roof. The most basic unit of a house. This became my world, my sanctuary. For months now, I’d lived a monk-like existence furnishing my room with only the most essential items—a mattress, one lamp, some books, and a desk. In case of an emergency, I’d need 10 minutes at best to pack my entire life and be ready to leave. Only now, it was an emergency, but there was nowhere to go.
Over the next few months, this room saw me through everything—a perpetual fear, my occasional bouts of loneliness, some unexpected joys, new hobbies I tried every fortnight, my unironic and mostly unsuccessful attempts at productivity, the periodic video calls I’d make to other similarly marooned friends. Just writing about it takes me back.
I don’t think I can tell this story particularly well, it’s just not easy to think about and write. There are times I’d rather not remember, there are combinations of feelings I just can’t fully describe, and there are some things that are best left unsaid. It’s not easy to write anything that can completely capture the absolute absurdity of the time when all this began. The extremeness of the time seems hard to recall now in Year-III of the Great Pandemic, when things at least look a lot more “normal”, whether they actually are or not. The thing is, my world and my life shrunk to the four walls that enclosed me. And if walls could talk, they’d probably tell that story better than I could.
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