Corona Diaries: Ruminations around a Virus (1)

R. Umamaheshwari is an independant journalist and historian. Here she shares some thoughts from a diary kept during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. She published, among other books and articles : (i) R, Umamaheshwari. When Godavari Comes: People’s History of a River, Aakar Books, New Delhi, 2014; (ii) R, Umamaheshwari. ‘Dislocations, Marginalisations, Past and Present: Pain-Experiences of Two Marginalized Communities’, in George, k. Siby, P.G. Jung, Eds, Cultural Ontology of the Self in Pain, Springer, New Delhi, Heidelbeg, New York, 2016, pp. 227-247; (iii) R, Umamaheshwari , ‘Reconfiguring ideas of land, river and forest in the context of the Indira Sagar Polavaram National Project on Godavari’, in Bhagat-Ganguly Varsha, Ed., Land Rights in India, Routledge, South Asia edition, New Delhi, 2016, pp. 31-48; R, Umamaheshwari, ‘River as a Feminine Presence: Godavari in Andhra Pradesh’, in Iyer, R, Ramaswamy, Living Rivers, Dying Rivers, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015, pp. 219-239; R, Umamaheshwari, ‘From Non-Being to Being and Becoming: Nilakeci’, IIC Quarterly, Autumn 2012, India International Centre, New Delhi, 2012, pp.1-10; R, Umamaheshwari, ‘Constructing the Marginalised: Some Reflections on the Tamil Jainas in History’, Journal of History, Vol.28 (2010-11), Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 2011, pp. 7-33.
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PROLOGUE
Everything was going in accordance with the season. In October 2019, At Tabo (of the ancient Buddhist gompa / monastery), in Spiti (in Himachal Pradesh), the school children eagerly awaited their winter break from the coming month, even as a few late apples were harvested in Lari village nearby (which Tulku ji offered some), from some of the smaller fields. A few late tourists were thronging the monasteries of Spiti; the Bengalis were the loudest, full of what to do next. A few construction workers were readying a new home-stay for the next tourist season. People were busy with their lives, preparing for the coming year, as I filled my heart with remorse and nostalgia of my last journey with my companion-dog, Malli, here. Some weeks later, in the village Mudh in the Pin Valley, a few women, including the Buddhist nun (Chomo Tchering), were readying the road and shared their lunch of breads, tea and laughter with me. Gradually, by late December, snow had covered most of the place. It was time to stay home around the fire chimneys and look at the year gone by, and the new one coming in. On a particularly cold and snow-laden new year’s eve in Kibber, young Sonam, her mother and me shared tears of pain and joy over chang (made of fermented Barley), huddled around the fire-chimney in their mud-brick house. The first day of the year 2020 started here, with a glorious bright Sun rays glistening on the rooftops of this tiny village. This winter was like all other winters, at least until then. Over the next few days, it would be harsher. News of a Snow Leopard who had killed an Ibex was doing the rounds; the last SUVs from the cities drove in city people for a quick picture of the Snow Leopard; that done, they left, just as soon. Three little puppies played by the frozen Pin river stream and it was a guess if they would survive the harsh winter of the coming three months (sadly, they did not), even as I struggled with the dilemma of adopting one of them. Earlier, a dog had already died from lack of food in the cold and its body lay on the frozen river under the bridge. The red fox was roaming around in relative peace and a few Ibex were out grazing. This was their time to be free. Everything, otherwise, was the way things had always been. Home-stays would soon be closed and the last few Yaks, now preparing the fields for the fallow period during the snow season, will soon be led to graze in the forests far away. People traditionally do that in this season; the Yak will return home soon as the harsh winter recedes. This is their moment to graze free in relatively normal temperatures. Enough fodder and fuel-wood has been stocked at home for the winter months (temperatures ranging between minus 30 to minus 35 degrees Celsius); the cows would remain with families in the pen beneath the house, as would the sheep. Solar lanterns were being charged from whatever little sunlight happened on a given day. The long winter months are a challenge even for people living in these environs over several generations. But the attitude is always to look at the summer that will follow.
Later, around until mid-March this year, Shimla was full of traffic and tourists and the usual tourist spots, the Mall road, and the colonial Viceregal Lodge (also called Rashtrapati Niwas, which now houses the institute of advanced study, dedicated by the first President of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, to the country as the first autonomous institute for advanced research) were bustling with people enjoying the summer in the hill station. People were huddled around smaller eateries on the streets like always. Life was going about in its normal pace, even as news of a new Virus in China (some far away land) was the topic of discussion everywhere.
The Buddha once remarked that permanent is nothing (on a more affirmative tone, everything is transient); yet, I came here to form a permanent base in the mountains rather than be the nomad I have been over the years. The first time I came to Himachal Pradesh, over two decades ago, it was like serendipity, sharing dinner (and a few songs) with three women, cooked from fresh greens plucked from the fields of yellow sesame blossoms, in a beautiful, small, village called Deot. Years later, I would return in a different context, yet share the same warmth with several others in the neighbourhood (of this Institute), and the villages across valleys and high mountains, with my companion-dog, Malli. Sometimes, it is the bonds with people, rather than merely ravishing landscapes, which become the idea of home. Or what it means to ‘be home’, even if you weren’t born here. Sometimes, it is the ‘other’ who arrives from distant lands, who finds a way ‘inside’ to meanings that the ‘insider’ (always here) doesn’t see. You always arrive from the ‘outside’. The Buddha found his truth from the outside, in, and found ‘homes’ in regions far from his place of birth, across landscapes. And then you wonder if there could be simultaneous places of arriving ‘home’ to? Or do you just remain, ‘of this one place’? Between a river and a mountain, how do you decide one against the other? What about people who live here, and there, and those who live, in between?
So, you expect to arrive at a certain place, after all your journeys. As the Yaks do, after all their forest walks, away from home, in time for the Summer, to work. As I did, after several years of to and fro, to finally find my space around these environs, though this time without Malli. But the anti-climax happened. And life changed, not just for me, but several others around the world; for some, in the midst of their travels and before arriving.
I write from a particular location and situation, so what I write here is conditional to both: the location and the present situation / predicament. The predicament, of course, is common to many people around the world, confined in some space, under (total, or partial) lockdown. I write from within the limitations and confines of my present space, a solitary woman, in a tiny room of a guest house in the institute (I once was a Fellow at) in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. And the only people I am in touch with happen to be from across vocations, class and caste (postman, farmer, shepherd, flower-seller, fruit-seller, autorickshaw and taxi driver, cleanliness worker, among others), with whom one has had longer connections or, simply, neighbourhood links or, bonds forged over the years of travelling across, and living in, different regions. I am seeing the world around me, while hearing from them of their world at this point, realising how different many people’s worlds are, in spite of the commonality of the lockdown and confinement across the world. A regular phone line, when and where it works, becomes a great instrument of reinforcing some of these connections, getting one ‘out in the world’, in some way, and of sharing anxieties, fears and experiences. I once happened to be an independent journalist and historian, or that is what I used to identify myself as. I realise now that my livelihood was fed by the informal economy to a large extent. From where I am today, it is hard to be either that journalist or that historian (of any kind); it is relatively harder now to access people’s voices, or histories in the ways that I used to then, from the ground. Many things changed over the last year and a half, and particularly over the last two months. I once had a house I called home, and a ‘permanent address’ (in the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad) and now I don’t. It now seems relevant to speak of this ‘personal’ bit, connected as it is to the economy in particular ways, which the present state of lockdown makes more relevant to the nature of one’s relating to the world and lack of particular kinds of access to it in some ways, as well. Unable to manage the equated monthly instalments, the sheer struggle of years (which connects me to many across the world), in the absence of a permanent regular income, I sold the apartment and lost my permanent address along with it. So long as I was not a lone woman, and had a partner in these journeys (my dog, Malli), it was easier to grapple with the idea of not having an address. But losing that person to death makes me wonder as to where or what is ‘home’, really. What does it mean to ‘own’ a home? Is it that crucial to survival itself? Today, as I reflect on the world around me, and on the economic future we will soon face, I wonder if the imprisonment to the debt industry was a better bet than the ‘freedom’ of the current uncertainty and a hope for a non-debt-based home to live in. Perhaps many ask a similar question of the lockdown, if being out working is better than being confined, even if, apparently, it means giving oneself the chance of being free from the virus. If the economy continues to remain closed across some sectors, and the money dwindles by the day without a steady inflow of income (funnily enough, for once the question of income generation is facing even larger countries today, thanks to the virus). I reflected on the present state from economic contexts of many others whose worlds I heard about over the phone. The current situation, and the economy dare me, and many others. Or let us say that states across the globe seem to dare people to bear the brunt of the present losses, in the hope for a better future. I walked a long way through the mirage of the so-called ‘affordable’ homes sector (the only sector I was ‘eligible’ for, and I have seen the way agents’ or realtors’ attitudes change the moment one mentions one’s ‘budget’, and how they make you realise the kind of spaces you are only worth), reflecting since months on the idea of ‘home’. In today’s context, while I understand perfectly now the anxiety of many to ‘go home’ or ‘go back home’, I continue to ask the question as to what is home made out to be. Can there be a universally applied idea of ‘home’ for everybody across cultures, regions, and histories? What to say for the idea home for the traditionally itinerant communities? Is there also a ‘notional’ and ‘real’ idea of home, each being distinct? If I were to look at myself as a subject of my enquiry, I feel ‘at home’ in the mountains here though I wasn’t born here (as some of those born in Himachal feel at home elsewhere in the country or outside); the city where I had my so-called ‘permanent address’ did not make me feel at home and the so-called ‘maximum city’ I was born in, I was never at home in, barring the time a child perceives its parents as the only idea of security / home. But if one were to speak in more specific terms, sometimes the ‘at home’ feeling does not come from a four-walled structure (and depends on the people, nature, who make you feel belonging in and intimacy with); yet, many a times, a structure, a shelter and roof over one’s head (especially a roof and shelter which lends dignity to the personhoods living within), where one feels secure and safe, is what ‘home’ is about. So, the millions of ‘migrant’ workers walking to their villages from a city did so, because the city and its people did not extend to them that dignified space. The spaces they lived in almost mock at the very idea of humanity and dignity. In fact, many of these people must have taken a decision to move from the villages (or small towns) to the big cities to escape the restrictive contexts of their lives: caste oppression, landlessness, lack of employment, and education opportunities, and loss of dignity and self-respect. In their idea of their own future, perhaps, they hoped the city-spaces would provide them not only monetary support but also a caste-less (or caste-insignificant, to the extent that was possible) basis to pursue a livelihood? A dignified roof and shelter, not merely a card with a designated address and number, in addition to economic security, sometimes counts as ‘home’. Many do take the decision to leave what we call ‘homes’ towards a better prospect. And they do make ‘homes’ elsewhere. That choice of elsewhere needs to be acknowledged as a crucial aspect of human histories.
This roof and shelter I have at this temporary moment makes me feel secure, while, at the same time, its being a conditional space (conditional to the mercy of the institute that ‘owns’ it, and time and context) spurs the anxiety to ‘be home’ somewhere. Many across the globe may be going through traumas other than the virus: loss of a loved one, unemployment, uncertain futures. States that extend unemployment benefits for people may address at least one part of the problem. What about states where there is no universal social security?
I journeyed long to find a home in the mountain but then, just as I would have got myself a new ‘permanent’ address (who knows?), the Virus struck. I wonder, what a long walk it will be to a life that could be called ‘normal’, hoping ‘freedom’ (from confinements and to choice of movement and livelihoods, as well as freedom to dissent, or choice to say ‘no’, and ‘yes’) might be part of that normal for people across the world.
On a more positive note, this room of the guest house happens to be located in an institute amidst Cedar and Silver oak trees and extended moments of silence you can hear the smallest of life-forms in. So, my life is so much better than the bleakness of many others outside. The present is precarious; meeting people, living with them, writing their stories isn’t a possibility now, when even full-time media persons need permissions to report from the ground. So like all others here, I obey the rules of the lockdown, getting out during stipulated hours to fetch milk and stuff to eat (sometimes followed back by an old dog-friend). Indoors most other hours of the day, it is easy to fall prey to depression, except that I am today part of a larger community of people fighting the same battle. I remember my pen and notebook and the now, which is too important a historic moment to miss. So it occurs to me, at times, that a home is as impermanent as the rest of everything; but I acknowledge its importance to those it matters to. In this confinement, I cannot write in the manner that I used to before (irrespective of whether or not someone read what I did write so far; but this too, ‘who will read’, just as the question of death, does not bother me anymore), but I can share the only thing I do know: my present truth. My own feelings and what I hear from all those people with whom I somehow, somewhere, shared everyday lives with. And I can only write of how I try to make sense of the virus. I am also connected to the world outside through my father’s pocket transistor radio, that antique piece that Satyanarayana (the elderly electronics service-person in an old street of Secunderabad) got working for me last year. I think of Satyanarayana and only now I learn from him that he used to travel every morning (45 minutes to an hour) by a passenger train from Yadadri, several kilometers from Hyderabad, and then catch a bus to reach his shop a little after 12 noon. He would repair the oldest models of tape recorders, television sets and radios, until around 5 pm, when he left for home. Today, his shop is closed, and he is confined at his village home. Wonder if and when he will return to his specialised vocation he has had since decades now. The outside worlds, and people, thus, keep entering this room through the phone, thankfully. I remember times in the past when I ‘switched off’ people from my world when I immersed myself in my manuscript drafts. Today, even as I wait for the phone to ring, I can’t wait to check on how someone is doing; all those people whose everydays and mine were linked either by circumstance or a chance journey. And I realise somethings anew, and the affect of the present on them. I do not have any illusions about myself or what I perceive. I am deeply confined and limited. And I think of those who go out to collect stories, while I only write of a limited world within my access to people.Thankfully, reflection on the self and the world is as yet freely accessible and immensely possible. So I reflect, while with a lot of self-doubt. These are my observations, reflections based on information I can only hear and see for now, in this moment, from the space I live in, and from a distance imposed by circumstances. But distant, I am not; and disengaged, not yet. Each day is a new observation; outcome of what I hear on my radio or watch on the television, occasionally; everyday brings with it something that wasn’t there before. On the whole, this historical moment in time is coming with a substantial political intent across the world, which lesser mortals like me cannot truly fathom. I just happen to be in this moment, not as a ‘corona hero’, or ‘corona warrior’, but an ordinary woman alone, immensely aware and thankful of being relatively closer to nature, the warmth of familiar neighbourhoods and the kindnesses of many ordinary people; a sheer blessing, in spite of a conditional room space in a guest house.
Listening to the radio (with simply the medium wave bandwidth) especially the programmes of the Akashvani Shimla Kendra, means listening to a wide range of folk songs of every linguistic region within Himachal Pradesh state, every day, for dedicated hours thrice a day. Compared to the radio programmes in other states that I have lived in, this is the perhaps the most a radio station dedicates to folk music and musicians (some of these with an anchor speaking in the language / dialect of that particular region) than in anywhere else. And this is not a new phenomenon. It has continued over the years. The Akashvani Shimla Kendra has some rare records of male and female folk musicians from several years. This radio station was set up on June 16th, 1955/56, even before the Himachal Pradesh state was formed, an employee there informs me. In a way, it keeps the different languages spoken in this state (and expressions in the songs) alive, while Hindi has become the more universally spoken language here for official and other purposes. Meanwhile, the national public radio broadcaster (All India Radio) with its numerous stations across the country accompanied the everydays of people from across caste, class, gender and religion. Farmers on the field, truck drivers on the road, tailors in the smallest corner of every village, city or town, women at home, those street-corner ironing men (still a vocation practised in bylanes of every city in India, for those lazy to iron their own clothes), vegetable-, fruit-vendors and so on. The national radio is mandated to allot time slots for farming, animal husbandry, poultry, horticulture and so forth, as also slots for women and children, which continue even in times such as these. Since independence, various governments have utilised this medium to their benefit, and considering that to this day the radio is the only medium for news in remotest of villages, its utility (in spite of the burgeoning television viewership) hasn’t waned yet.
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