How to Entertain Yourself in Quarantine/Lockdown - Part I

A do-it-yourself guide for people in lockdown, dreaming of their world before a carnivorous Chinese couple chose to eat for breakfast, a bat in early rigor mortis dipped in chop suey, instead of their usual fried bandicoot with chicken-in-oyster sauce (a multi-species speciality).

Since my thoughtful article on the benefits of corona epidemic, I have been deluged by mail and telephone calls asking for advice on what to do with oneself at home during lockdowns, or enforced quarantine. They all appreciate the need for the lockdowns for curtailing the spread of Covid-19. Alongside, they confess also to enjoying some collateral benefits of the measure, like timely and untimely access to foods they love, 24/7 (supported by an over-stacked pantry), service by roughened but sanitized hands smelling of aloe Vera with a dash of Polish vodka (70% alcohol), 24 hour TV watch permitting leisurely revision of Indian epics highlighting impermanence of human lust, longings and life (and at times power supply) and, (happily, in utter contrast to situation in lockups,) total heterosexual freedom.

But all the lockdown adherents find the confinement to home very irksome; and in public, shouting pleasantries to close friends from 6 feet is blatantly ludicrous. The office goer is forced to realize that he owes his sanity (and his wife’s) to his regularly going to a job that he despises, and what’s worse, compelled to realize what a bore he is left to his own company even as his friends had frequently hinted.

Except for the children enjoying a dream vacation at home, every segment of the population is sick of this interminable intimacy. The working population wants desperately to know, how to spend their days during this indefinite lockdown, repeatedly suppressing the impulse to jump off their balconies. The youthful groups are depressed by the news that after 4 pm, only medical establishments like hospitals, and post-medical establishments like funeral parlors are open.

Even senior citizens who have been in partial hibernation for some years quietly mumbling and moulting in their corners, are beginning to worry for a different reason. Many of them have sent in Twitter messages, complaining not so much on their isolation that they are used to, but subtle exhibitions of agism (prejudice against the old) right in their homes, and under the ruse of concern for their safety during the epidemic. They cite instances like - an alarming keenness to summon an ambulance at the merest suggestion of a cough (actually executed just to get an extra toast at the breakfast table), repeated requests for full signatures at bottoms of blank letter pads and discreet attempts at social distancing within confines of a drawing hall measuring just 150 square feet.

The vulnerability of the old to corona infection worries family members not only on emotional grounds, but also by the threat of getting infected themselves. One obsessive compulsive daughter-in-law had actually sprayed alcohol-based sanitizer into the mouth-piece of a shared land phone, converting her mousy old father-in-law with weak brain circulation, into a joyous blabbering idiot, and what’s worse, making passes at a comely courier woman! And that, despite most of the that woman’s face being under a mask, homemade from a piece of bedsheet, and held down by a hairband and will power. May be the old-man was misled by a large parcel (enclosing a “foam lined truss for a hernia”, ordered by a herniated super senior neighbor) the courier was holding close to her, believing the parcel to be a mesmeric manifestation of mother Nature’s munificence.

I shall write on possible ways of entertaining oneself at these bleak times, with only minimal recourse to user-friendly electronic gadgets. I shall meticulously avoid suggesting the use of advanced electronic devices available today - like cellphones reading fingerprints and raising an alarm in wrong hands, laptops that can perform circumcision in the keen and willing, robots that can feed a baby the milk of its choice using Artificial Intelligence, or getting Alexa, an Amazon gadget shaped like a Taj Mahal Minaret, to get Julie Andrews, singing ‘Edelwise’ in her sexy voice every dawn. I have seen a computer buff sitting in his drawing hall effecting magical interventions, - like turning off the neighbor’s noisy Home Theatre system, or even turning on the neighbor’s wife, by deft handling of complicated knobs on a Remote.

The older generations, aged over 60, are unnerved by such gadgets what with many of their own body systems in disrepair and slipping out of voluntary control, what to say of remote control. They are demoralized by huge modern TV sets manipulated by two remotes - a smaller remote to work its bigger remote, and riddled with mini-buttons the size of Covid-20 that only a qualified computer programmer or his children aged 10 or less, can operate.

Now coming to the point, how does one convert these Covid- induced home confinements into joyous and productive mini vacations?

I shall first mention suggestions offered by many on the social media for the purpose, only to dismiss them with the disdain they deserve. Like the ones that read - - ‘‘ Learn embroidery, sell your creations and make money during your quarantine” ( my question : After your grandmother’s timely demise, has anybody ever bought any embroidery in your family? If ‘yes’, why? ) and one on ‘Learn to make N-95 masks from hardly used thongs and a football nose”, ’ or Write a novel basing on your experiences in lockups you have known” , or ‘learn Jallikattu with a rented bull, utilizing the empty streets,”, ( Jallikattu is a South Indian version of bull-fight with spectator participation; very popular with politicians who get their foremost ideas from the rearmost portion of the bull). One suggestion for enjoying your lockdown, invites you to plan the menu for your last supper before your hanging the next morning! (I would ask for a glass of hemlock plus 2 Marie biscuits just for a final feminine touch).

My suggestions given below are based on sound uncommon sense, a good insight into human superego, vast experience with infectious depressives, and on the universal dictum ‘’more irresponsible you are, the less you are held responsible”. They are well detailed but might call for more than a pinch of the metaphoric salt.

I - Telephone old friends from the past

Ring up and talk to old friends, (like your high school mates or member of your cricket team), after what is perhaps a gap of decades; get to relive memories of old joyous times. You can enjoy invigorating nostalgia for hours every day. Not only their voice but even hearing their woes can cheer you up, especially if any help from you is not expected, not possible, nor even mooted ; like for example, hearing of the friend’s daughter eloping with the driver, or his miseries with a demented spouse, or a son whose name is mentioned by Interpol in dispatches. It is a fact of life that one gets vaguely comforted by listening to another person’s woes; not some kind of vicarious pleasure, but one from a deep felt relief that your life may be no bed of roses, but happily is not a bed of nettles either. And you realize with relief that your wife is in full control of her senses. And yours, as well.

Only, before giving a call, just ensure this old friend is still living, and if alive, cerebrally preserved. There is nothing more depressing than a dementing old friend dismissing you, after your warm gleeful yell, with “sorry, I don’t think I ever studied in P.S.High school. Anyway it is time for my afternoon nap. Good night! “, and the phone dies in your hand.

This is of course better than being told over phone that the friend had shed his mortal coil, some months back and in dying moments was blabbering your name. (That shouldn’t worry you; could be some drug’s toxic side effect). You may end up talking to a descendant you have not known to exist, or worse, get to hear the sad details from the residual spouse, most often a wife (world statistics).. She will between spasmodic sobs, drag you into details on the demise, and shocking medical bills. You will find offering her solace over telephone . Telephonic solace is an exercise in fatuousness (am sayings this for want of an easier word). Also the news will only aggravate the miseries of your own isolation, focussing on thoughts of human impermanence , mostly relating to you know who. And further, you will be disturbing a widow when she’s just getting to enjoy her hard-won widowhood.

So before telephoning , as a matter of abundant caution, make some enquiries from a mutual old friend about this friend’s whereabouts. Of course let the mutual friend be someone you have spoken to very recently.you can never tell at these viral times.

A double whammy can be alarming!

...to be continued in Part II, coming soon!