Everyone says we are actually living the dystopian life today. You know, the eerily calm and deserted streets, people dodging the mere hint of physical contact, the morbid silence in the air offset by a deafening clamor on the Internet (which for many including yours truly, is regrettably as bothersome as noises in the head), food supplies vanishing right under your nose at the shopping aisles, jobs hanging by a thread, the urban poor shell-shocked and defenseless, China becoming the global bear bug, and a very hazy perception of time for those working from home.
That makes you gloomy? Let me recount a personal experience.
The night our dear leader announced the nationwide lockdown, I was bending my elbow at my friend Manju’s place. I was naturally out of control and considering a stayover. It took me a full ten minutes and a lot of paraphrasing by Manju to make me understand the import of the PM’s televised address. There was no way I could stay back. I had to return home at any cost. I shook myself free of Manju’s protests and attempted embraces, exited his apartment and started making the first of several futile efforts at getting an Uber or an Ola. After several typos on the app before realizing the cabs were actually off the roads, I was still on the footpath at the end of a full hour. Whatever was left of my conscious mind told me it is safer to get back to Manju’s. I started tracing my steps back when all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain shoot right up through my left leg. A mongrel had got me. Fuck! That was some bite – I still shudder ! I’m a chap who has gatecrashed into strangers’ houses abandoning my footwear on the street, at the very sight of a dog running behind me albeit chasing someone else. For someone positively paranoid of canines wherever he walks, this was my worst nightmare come true. So I had to scream at the top of my lungs. And scream I did. But not a soul on the street to come to my aid as I writhed in pain. I desperately hoped a cop would come along, bark a different bark, and put me on a rickshaw to the nearest hospital.
Photo by Tania Melnyczuk on Unsplash
No ma’am. None of that happened. I guess everyone on the damn force was either watching the blasted TV address or digesting it at leisure. Not a soul on the road. What if it was a rabid dog? What if I‘d go crazy by the crack of dawn? Though my stupor had started to wear off (a most inopportune moment, I tell you), I took a good two-three minutes to fish out my cellphone from the pocket. And what do I see on the screen? Nothing. The sweet little thing had gone dead just then. I mean, was this for real? My mind raced. Scratch that. It hobbled. Feeling despondent, I thought of pausing my agony for a bit and finding succor in a cigarette. Yes, there it was in my knee pocket. I lit one up, took a drag and started to believe that I could now clear my head and think. The long drag had made the cigarette look ugly with a long smoldering end, and I had to tap it to get the flakes off. And the cigarette slipped from between my fingers. You see, I had hauled myself up on the kerb, with the bitten leg stretched out and the right one folded and lending support. The kill-throat landed perfectly on my right foot. Before I realized that the sudden pang was caused by the cigarette, it had managed to bore a nice little crater right at the center of my foot.
I now had to obviously divide my attention to the two sources of pain. Both of them were like uncontrollable kids, believe you me. I don’t remember much about what happened that night after these two little incidents, because I must have passed out.
When I woke up, it wasn’t well into the day. You see, I wasn’t at my home. The first rays of sunlight had barely made their way to this part of the world. I found myself right where I had passed out. Only, I smelt of dog pee, was covered with dry leaves fallen from a tree, and staring at a nice big puss had formed where the dog had found its mark. A dog had left me to the dogs, what? I lifted myself up only to slump down again.
It was the first day of the lockdown, so even the grocers, the hawkers, none of them had turned up. It was only a good couple of hours later that the evidence of the lockdown started to fall in place. The cops came in teams and started erecting barricades and check posts. I hollered at the one nearest to me. He looked at me for a second and turned away. I hollered back with, “you motherfucker, are you deaf or are you blind?” in Kannada. That got him. The expletive was my flag of the castaway! I rejoiced. The constable came charging at me, ready to thwack me. I said I need help. Look at me, I need help. He did help me. He called up someone, interrogated me enough, got me water as well, and put me on a police jeep to the nearest hospital. Not before sending my spectacles flying.
I’m lying on the hospital bed now. I have been treated, and should be out real soon. They want me out as fast as possible. The hospital is getting Covid-ready. As I read news reports about state of the world out there, they don’t register a lot inside my head.
If you ask me, I’ve already been to hell and back. A personal hell. I look forward to the quarantine and a loooong stay-put.
Wild Bore 