Covid conversations

I don’t believe in luck. But I certainly was pushing my luck too far when I was travelling frequently when Covid was so rampant. I did not have a choice: My wife and kids had decided to shift to Pune and I had to make at least one trip there every month. My office gave the option of working from home, but did not offer the liberty of working from any home – I had to remain in Bangalore.

Upon that four of my cousins decided to get married in successive months. I could not miss the marriages, so several visits to Mangalore became necessary. And I always chose public transport, barring the one time I rode to Mangalore on my bike and the other time when I rode overnight to Pune.

I had my own crude way of monitoring my health: I used to jog 3-4 kms in the morning. If I was not going out of breath, I had certainly not caught the infection. Yet I thought it makes sense to get myself vaccinated, when I was travelling so much. I was also a regular in office as I could never bear to sit at home all day – without much sunlight and air.

The offer to get vaccinated came from a friend of Mr.Poonawala. It was all set – I was to go to Pune one weekend and I could get my whole family vaccinated. Morally not right to jump the queue when the whole country was struggling for jabs. But sometimes you become selfish – comfort wins over morality.

But my family advised against taking the vaccine due to the rumors they had heard. Atleast they did not want to me get vaccinated when I was with them in Pune, lest I catch fever and in turn put the kids in danger.

So when I actually fell ill 2 weeks after that Pune trip, I was silently cursing my wife for denying me a shot. I spent most part of that weekend in bed – I was too tired and had no motivation to get out of bed even to cook. By evening I went out to purchase a thermometer and checked the temperature. 102.6.

Now I have to state my belief system. I have been raised by heavy dosages of books and concepts like Quantum healing by Deepak Chopra, Power of your sub-conscious mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy and of late sermons by Sister Shivani of Brahmakumaris. All these had influenced me into creating my belief system: If you think you are feeling unwell, slowly your mind will believe it and make you unwell. As a corollary, if you believe that you are in the pink of your health, the mind works to achieve that status, even if you are ill physically. This belief system had refrained me from taking any kind of medicines for any kind of illness – and I hardly contacted anything serious in a long time. The last time I was hospitalized was when I had a tryst with typhoid soon after my break-up. I had reasons to believe that the break-up had a strong say in destroying my immunity leading to me letting the bacteria to conquer my body.

But when I saw 102.6 on the thermometer, I decided to pop a Paracetemol. I had to attend a product strategy meeting with the Sweden team the next day and I did not want to miss it due to illness.

I was advised by my in-laws to get a RTPCR done to be on the safe side. Next morning I was up and was feeling so fine that I cycled to the hospital to get the RTPCR done. I gave my samples, returned home and was into the meetings. I ended up attending day long meetings, the side-effects of work from home, on the next day too.

So I was really shocked when I received my test report from the lab – I was Covid positive! Suddenly I had become an untouchable! Suddenly I was to be contained within the four walls of the house! I waited till midnight to share the report with my office and family – else I would start getting calls and advices all night. I slept with the heavy heart that I would not be encountering humanity, sun light and wind for the next 2 weeks. That was even terrible than Covid.

The calls started in the morning: My parents wanted me to come over to Mangalore immediately, having seen the condition of Bangalore on the local news channels – public running away from the city, patients waiting for beds outside hospitals, sky-rocketing statistics… My in-laws wanted me to immediately get a CT scan done and start on a course of Azithromycin, Tamiflu and Vitamin C, D & Zinc supplements. Regular Oximeter reading was mandatory.

I was fearing that everyone would push me out of my belief system and turn my body into a chemical dustbin.

So I contacted my doctor friend in London. She was tested positive couple of months ago and had recovered. That gave the much needed relief: She started with a nice “Welcome to the league!” and went on to advice to remain hydrated and take medicine only if fever prevails. Just go on with your routine work. Only if you feel too tired and breathless in doing the regular work, oximeter is to be used.

Well, the patient wanted to hear just this thing from the doctor. I was suddenly full of life – placebo effect. I decided to take the bike to Mangalore – that was also the legal thing to do, as hiring a cab might put the driver at risk.

However the family was dead against my brilliant idea. I booked an Uber outstation and reached my parents, I kept the windows down and always had the mask on so as to minimize risk of any kind of spreading to the driver. I locked myself into a room. Food, hot water for gargling and tulsi water for steaming was delivered at the door.

While I was feeling physically fit, mental peace had been disturbed. There was so much news on social media and several whatsapp groups. I did not know what to attribute my better health to – either I had caught a not-so-wild virus or the time I had dedicated to keep myself fit had yielded results by suppressing the virus within me. Many of my colleagues were also infected and some had recovered. Most common advice coming from them was to stay indoors, cut off from office, Netflix and chill.

I decided to take a 3 days break from office – had not taken one in a very long time and my mind was begging for mercy. I started reading a book, also something I had not done in a long time. Coincidentally, the book was also about a person getting lost in the melee of corporate world and how he ignores the bare essentials in life and where he ends up. While this was a known phenomenon, the timing and state in which I read it actually struck some chords in me. I decided not succumb to the tides – all along I had tried to go with the flow, doing things what others wanted of me, keeping my feelings suppressed, trying to oblige everyone in an attempt to be good to everyone… and I realized I had lost my true self in the process. I had kind of become a puppet dancing to the tunes of the hands that controlled it by the strings.

I started to do some thought download and went on to write about my life. I poured all my thoughts and emotions – which were all pent up for an exceedingly long time. I reflected on where I went wrong and where I let people take advantage of me. Once completed, it was a huge relief. It felt like I had taken a massive load off my head, put it in a locker and stored it away for eternity.

I then started attending office online. Meanwhile I lost a close friend in office. It was scary to think that 3 weeks ago I had spent time with him in the office canteen sharing a bhel puri and discussing on how he would spend time when he goes to meet his family after one year. Once he reached his family he had caught Covid and succumbed after a week’s struggle.

Suddenly all the struggles we go through life, things we do in anticipation of rewards, things we do to satisfy our egos, expectations, desires and the unfulfilled state of it… everything that we have been giving so much importance to, felt so trivial and meaningless. It took an invisible virus to bring this change of perception that we are so vulnerable and should actually be grateful for what we have got in life. Instead we spend so much time pondering on those few things that we have not got and that actually takes the center-stage of mind. We conveniently forget the goodness we have experienced throughout our journey. The same gets replicated in office. The same gets replicated in relationships.

Locked in the tiny 10x12 room, I got relieved – physically, not much was needed. But mentally, to a great extent. It is 2 weeks since I felt the first symptoms and I have already started going on my morning jogs.