Love in the times of Coronavirus

Shahbaz was lying on his bed, scrolling mindlessly on his laptop, thinking of which TV series to watch next when he heard a loud din. Curious, he put on his T Shirt lying on the chair, combed his disheveled hair with his fingers and stepped out in his room’s balcony. The complete housing society was out in their balconies; clapping, banging plates and cheering. He realized it was 5 PM, on March 22nd. The PM had asked people to come out and applaud the doctors, the nurses, the police and all other essential services workers who were risking their lives in this Covid-19 lockdown. It was the second day of the lockdown and this clapping was a welcome change from the monotony that his daily life was, even before the lockdown. He had come from Chandigarh two years ago, to work in an IT company in Bangalore. He did not have many friends in Bangalore and most of his waking hours were spent either working or in the gym or binge watching one TV series after another.

Smiling, he started clapping as well. He heard two voices from his left join in the clamor, the source was two women from his neighboring balcony across the stairwell, they were clapping and hooting and the older woman was banging a metal plate with a spoon. The older woman had short black hair with greys on the side, glasses with a big round frame and a big red bindi on her forehead. Shahbaz had difficulty guessing her age, she could have been anywhere between forties to sixties. The other woman with her a was a girl in her early twenties, she had shoulder length hair parted slightly from the side, full cheeks, a prominent sharp chin and big black eyes. She was taking a video on her phone, she pointed the camera towards Shahbaz and gestured him to cheer harder, and he did. Her camera and gaze had moved on but Shahbaz still kept looking at her, she was beautiful, and she had an infectious energy that seemed to move everyone on. It seemed to Shahbaz that ever since she came out on her balcony the applause was a little bit louder, the day brighter, even the sound of people banging metal, hooting and blowing conches sounded a bit musical, he felt he could stay in that moment forever. However, suddenly it all stopped, the applause subsided and people started going back inside their houses. The girl caught him staring at her and he got embarrassed. It seemed though like the girl wasn’t offended, she waved, said “Bye…… Happy Junta Curfew” and left. Shahbaz wanted to say a million things but he just waved with his mouth open and watched her disappear inside her house. He turned red and looked around nervously to check if someone saw him doing that, nobody had, cursing himself he came inside
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That night he had trouble sleeping, he had watched four episodes of Big Bang Theory without registering anything. There were a million thoughts going through his head, how will he manage to work from home, how will he figure out his food, if his parents were worried, how will his sister manage, did he have enough groceries at home but most of this thoughts were occupied with the girl in the balcony. Who was she, had he seen her earlier, was she single, will he ever see her again, was there any way to communicate with her? Pondering all thisvhe fell into a restless sleep full of dreams. The next morning he woke up with his usual alarm and realized he was ready too early, his forty-five commute was not needed anymore. He made a makeshift office for himself in his room by dragging the dining table in his bedroom, since he wanted to be close to the balcony. He kept the balcony door open and fan on the minimum so he could hear if someone came out on his neighboring balcony, but no one did. He kept going out in the balcony to smoke, stretch or to rest his eyes every two hours but saw no one came out in his neighboring balcony. By the night he was feeling defeated. He had his dinner as Maggi while sitting in the balcony with his chair reclined and feet on the balustrade. He felt stupid and though these kind of love stories happened in the movie and not in real life. He felt terribly alone in that moment while gazing at the lights of the concrete jungle in front of him, wondering why the hell did he come to this city. He came inside as it was already midnight and it was getting chilly outside, he washed the dishes and plugged his earphone in his laptop to watch a few episodes of Big Bang Theory while he tried to sleep. He was half-asleep when he chuckled seeing that Sheldon changed the name of their Wi-Fi name to ‘Ha ha I’ve got you now’ to mess with Leonard who wasn’t giving him his apartment flag back. Smiling he turned on his side to sleep and suddenly, he was wide awake! He opened the list of Wi-Fi his laptop was catching, most of them were default device or ISP names but he saw one network named ‘Mukherjee House – 1’. This could be that girl’s house, he thought, judging from the signal strength and that girl’s mother looked Bengali. He pondered over what he was planning and hesitatingly took the next step. He changed his Wi-Fi’s name to ‘Hi This is Shahbaz The guy from 12-B Happy Junta Curfew’. With that he had rolled the dice and his life was now in the hands of the Wi-Fi Gods.

The next day as soon as he woke up, he scanned the name of all Wi-Fi networks; but they all looked the same as yesterday. He felt stupid to think a Sitcom trick would work in real life, most people just automatically connected to their home’s Wi-Fi and never even looked at other available networks. He got ready feeling miserable and started working, careful that no one should see his Wi-Fi name on screen sharing. Nevertheless, he was still hopeful, he spent the morning scanning the name of networks every chance he got and going out in the balcony whenever he could. His mobile phone rang when he was out in the balcony; he rushed in to see if it was someone from office, but it was his mother, he picked up the call but finished the call in two minutes saying he was very busy at work. This was partly true, today was a busy day in office, his manager was nervous, and he wanted everyone to deliver the work in time despite working from home. However, the real reason was that he did not want to answer where his sister was during the lockdown. Soon he got busy with work and forgot all about the Wi-Fi and the girl.

He woke up the next day to see his phone full of Whatapp messages, all his friend’s groups had suddenly become active, his sister had replied that she will come up with some excuse to explain why she isn’t home with him and even his office people created a Whatsapp group to stay in touch. He felt mixed emotions, he was happy to catch up with all his friends but also felt guilty about not keeping in touch till now. Ever since he had come to Bangalore he had lost touch with friends and family in Chandigarh. Every time he thought about Chandigarh he felt angry. He was angry with his father for forcing him to work in an IT company when he wanted to join the Army in the Engineering core. He was angry with this mother for not standing up for him. He was angry with his sister who took this opportunity to leave Chandigarh knowing their parents wouldn’t have sent her alone to study in Bangalore. He was angry with his friends for talking him out of rejecting the campus placement and trying for the Army without telling his parents. So he had nursed his anger by working for long hours and on the weights in the gym. He spent the morning chatting with his friends and logged into work a bit late. It was mid-day and he was behind in this work when tragedy struck, he lost his internet connection. He restarted the router multiple times but nothing worked. Finally, he switched on his Phone’s hotspot to connect, while searching for his Phone’s hotspot he saw a network name ‘Hi Happy Junta Curfew’, the Wi-Fi gods had finally smiled on him. Elated, he did a little dance sitting on his chair and changed his phone’s hotspot name to ‘Hi Again 9980299802 Happy Junta Curfew’. Within a few minutes he had a Whatsapp message on his phone ‘Hi. This is Debajyoti, from 12-C. This WiFi idea is very innovative". Shahbaz’s mouth went dry, he had not thought about what to do after she will reply. Panicking he thought of asking advice from his friend, from his sister, from strangers on the Internet but all of them would have taken too long. He typed and deleted so many messages and finally went with ‘Hi. This is Shahbaz from 12-B. Thank you’. They exchanged messages intermittently the whole day and he came to know that Debajyoti or Debo as everyone called her had just finished Graduation and was working in a Digital Marketing firm as an intern. She spent a lot of time on social media for her work, also liked to dance, do cross-fit and play Sudoku.  Shahbaz realized that the reason that they never seen each other was because she was never home on weekends and Shahbaz was never home on Weekdays. She was using this lockdown time to learn Search Engine Optimization, especially how to make pages stand out in SERPs. She was a Bengali by origin but was born and brought up here in Bangalore. She lived with her Mother and Father. Her father had just returned from Italy so their family was in designated quarantine for fifteen days. The authorities had stuck a poster outside their house and instructed the building security that they no one should enter or leave their home.

While the pandemic raged on outside, their love blossomed. It was a global tragedy, millions were infected and hundred thousand people had died but Shahbaz hadn’t been this ecstatic for years. He spent his days working and messaging Debo while his nights were spent talking to her till she would fall asleep on the phone. At this point, he would disconnect the call and go to sleep himself. He would also make a video of himself working out at home every morning and upload on Instagram what Debo had called her ‘daily eye candy’, it had initially made him blush but he had started liking it more and more with every day. He had always been an introvert but working out was something he knew and talking to Debo had made him come out of his shell. Talking to Debo was something like therapy for him. All his emotions had just gushed out, he told her about her parents and their forcing him to work in IT. They were from Chandigarh, a conservative Sikh family. His father was a strict disciplinarian who loved him but was never around due to postings in the Army. His mother was always busy taking care of the two kids and her job as a teacher. His sister had always been a rebel. She had a boyfriend that she was living with but had not told their parents. Debo had just listened and asked some questions, she never got bored or asked him to shut up or made fun of him. That made her even more endearing to him. Every time he spoke of something, it reminded her of a meme or gif that she would send it to the next day. Due to her work, she had an encyclopedic knowledge of Memes, Trending topics and Viral challenges and would often speak about them.

It was the eighth day of the lockdown when he ran out of Maggi. He did not have anything in his house that he could use with his very limited culinary skills. He tried ordering food from outside but no one was delivering to his building because it was in quarantine. Messaging with Debo he casually asked if she knew any place that was still delivering food because he did not have anything in his house to eat. She got concerned and said she will ask her mom to prepare an extra person’s food and keep outside his house, he could take it after fifteen minutes after she was gone. Shahbaz tried to refuse but in the end, he had to give in. So that became their daily ritual, she would keep the plates outside his house for lunch and take them back at dinner time and keep another ones and Shahbaz would place little origami flowers made from old newspaper that he learned off YouTube, because his mother had asked never to return empty plates. There were ants in his food the first time when he had picked up but he did not tell it to Debo and just ate it anyways and came later and sprayed the area outside their homes with an insect killer.

Debo wasn’t on any social media and even used to view Shahbaz’s Instagram page from her work account. One day when he asked why she initially tried to brush it off but then stopped and sighed. “I guess I have to tell you eventually, I mean I have asked about your life, I think it is time for me to tell you about mine”. She took a pause and continued, “I used to date this guy in college, his name was Srikanth. We dated for three years, but near the end of college, he started getting increasingly possessive. He started making plans for me about what I should do after college, what I should wear when I go to meet his parents, how I will live in his house after we got married, even though we had never even discussed getting married. In the end, it got so suffocating that I broke up with him but then things got even worse..” she trailed off. Shahbaz just listened with bated breath, too afraid to say anything. He thought he probably hit her or something, but what followed was worse.  Debo continued with pain in her voice “After we broke up he apologized and said he would change but when I refused he threatened me with putting my intimate photos online. I sent him some photos on Snapchat when we were dating. I thought it was not possible to save them but he said that he had somehow saved them and insisted he still had them”. Debo had started sobbing now “I was too afraid to say anything to him or to think clearly. I just cried and cried for days, shut in my room. I pleaded with him not to do anything like that but he said he would only not do it if I got back together with him. Finally, I gathered the courage to talk to my parents. I was afraid of getting slapped, of them taking away my freedom, of them putting all sort of restrictions, perhaps they even try to get me married off abroad like that girl from DPS MMS. Instead, my father just put his arm around me and said it was not my fault and not to worry about it. My mother got me glass of water and asked me to stop crying. That night they did not leave my side until I fell asleep. The next morning my father called his lawyer friend who called Srikanth’s parents, threatening them with legal action if he put up any photos of me. And that was the end of it; I did not hear from him afterwards, I deleted all my social media profiles that day and have been away from it since then”. She just broke down crying after that. Shahbaz just seethed with anger, he felt this rage inside of him that was unknown of him. He blurted out “I will kill that guy if I ever get my hands on him. But it was so stupid of you to send him your intimate photos”. Debo was taken aback, “What?” she said. “Do you think this was somehow my fault?” Shahbaz just realized what he had said, he tried to say that he did not mean that but it was too late, the line went dead on the other side. He tried to call her multiple times but she did not pick up and soon her phone was switched off. Shahbaz felt mad with anger, he felt like punching the walls, he felt like killing that guy, he felt like killing himself, he felt he was trapped in this house and walls were closing in, so much so that  he could not breathe and his scream was stuck in his throat. That was the longest night he had seen, he was still awake when the morning light came.

He messaged Debo on Whatsapp several times the next day but his messages were not getting delivered. He resigned himself to his fate and he dragged himself to his computer to login and work but he felt lost. It was midday and he was on an office call but he was mentally absent, he closed and opened his eyes to see if he could wake up from this nightmare. But when he opened his eyes he was still there in the reality when Debo was not talking to him, he held his head in his hands and brushed his fingers in his unkempt hair when he heard a distinct sound. Somebody had kept a metal plate outside his door. Excusing himself from the office call he ran towards the door, but it was too late, there was food kept outside his door but the person was gone. He felt like running towards Debo’s door but he did not want to create a scene. He picked up the food and came inside. He tried to eat later that afternoon but he could not and tears started falling from his eyes. He realized that last time he had cried was his first day in this job, when it had dawned on him that he had lost his last chance to get into the army. He had not cried when he did not get through NDA, he had not cried when they made him stand naked as part of the first year Engineering ragging, he had not cried when he crushed his leg in a motorcycle accident which put a rod and the seven screws in his leg. However, he cried now, his tears dropped on the paper he tried to make an origami flower out of. That night his sister called to check on him and he just broke down crying, he told her what happened and his sister for the first time sympathized with him. She reassured him that all wasn’t lost and gave him such an outrageous idea that he thought it might just work.

The next morning instead of his usual workout video, he got in front of the camera he held a placard on his hand which read - I am sorry. I never thought that any of what happened was your fault. I do not always know the right thing to say, and I don’t deserve you. I know I have lost you but nevertheless I want to say that I am stupid to even suggest it that it was”. Then he moved away from the camera and came back with sister’s red bindi on his forehead and danced on the song that Debo hated the most, Genda Phool from Badshah, mouthing the word Debo when it was heard on the song. He uploaded that video and in a few minutes saw that this phone had lit up. It was a message from Debo which said “You are right, you are stupid. One fight does not mean you have lost me”. The world where 160 thousand had just died of an unstoppable virus was a good place again.

The days went on like that, she introduced him to her friends over a Zoom call and he introduced her to his sister who was very excited to hear that finally he had a girlfriend. Both of them counted the days to the end of Debo’s fifteen day mandatory quarantine when they could actually see each other in person. They dreamt together of a world where they could be together and outside. Debo told him about how she would like to go to Gullu’s chaat with him and all her friends and Shahbaz told her this road slightly outside Bangalore which had a canopy of Gulmohar trees, so if you looked up the sky looked red and if the wind was just mild enough you felt you were being showered with flowers.

The day that Shahbaz had waited had arrived, Debo’s quarantine had ended, government officials had come and removed the quarantine poster from their homes this morning and no one of her family had shown any symptoms. Her parents were going out today to buy groceries at 5 PM. Shahbaz kept looking at his watch the whole day, counting down the hours before go out and meet her. He worked at a frantic pace to finish his work and wrap up for the day. At 4 he got up and got ready, ironed his cleanest shirt, cleaned his sneakers, went extra crazy on the deodorant and popped a mint chewing gum. At 5 he walked out of his apartment and closed the door softly after him, his heart was pounding, his feet were shaky and he felt himself sweating. He had rehearsed a lot many lines but when he knocked on her door gingerly he felt blank. Her mom had opened the door, “Good evening hello Aunty, I am Shahbaz” he mumbled and felt like kicking himself for that stupid greeting. But Debo’s mom gave him the biggest smile “ Aah, so you are Shahbaz, come in beta, I hoped you liked my food. I don’t know any Punjabi cooking so I made whatever Debo wanted to eat. She made a gesture to sit in the sofa and went out of the living room. Shahbaz wondered whether to sit or stand, and then decided to sit. As soon as he was sitting down her father entered the room, he stood up to shake his hand but her father folded his hands for Namaste and said that is what we need to practice now. Embarrassed again he said Namaste and nervously smiled, he could feel sweat beading on his forehead but thought it would be weird to wipe it now. Thankfully Debo entered the room within minutes and started laughing as soon as she saw him. “My god, you are dressed so formally” she said laughing, “You are not going for an interview”. She was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants but still looked beautiful somehow. Shahbaz realized he was staring at her in front of her dad and quickly lowered his eyes. “Hi”, he said, and waved his hand “I just wore whatever I had” and chucked nervously. He was thinking of what to say next but her mom came from inside the house carrying her purse and two masks in hand, they were leaving for the supermarket to buy groceries.

“You sound different on the phone”, she said, as she took his hand and made him sit down next to her on the sofa. “So Mr. Tik Tok what did you plan on doing when we met for the first time”, she asked mischievously. “Nothing, I didn’t think about it all”, Shahbaz lied. He had thought of a million different things and but was too shy to say it. “Ok then I will go with what I had planned on doing” and leaned in for a kiss. Then she coughed. And Shahbaz thought “Fuck this, I am out of here”