Shobhaa De on love, loss, and healing in the time of a pandemic

“It’s worth cherishing the small things that delight us until the clouds lift...”

Covid has played mind games with the world, and causes annoying disconnects in our lives. Collateral damage has come in the form of fractured relationships—at home, at the workplace, even across vast distances. My daughter Anandita was fortunate—she found her solace in a tiny ball of apricot-coloured fur—an adorable and impossibly pretty miniature poodle called Bijou, while I still searched for my lucky charm. I only wish we had found Bijou earlier, at a time when stress levels were seriously threatening the peace in our home. The peace we had taken for granted over years of close but relatively independent proximity.

For most families, the dreaded Covid turmoil or Covid angst seriously disrupted the delicate balance of the emotional scales we call daily life. Anandita said in passing, “Mama, I think Covid has brought the world together...”. I absently agreed—in theory, it made sense. But has it, really? Relationships have taken the biggest hit, and the real crisis that faced all of us, and continues to, is a mental health pandemic and not a deadly virus.

Around me, I observe emotional debris as solidly-built relationships collapse in untidy heaps. The unlikeliest of couples are filing for divorce, while statistics for global clinical depression are impossible to tabulate. The numbers have overwhelmed sociologists and psychologists as much as those dealing with abject feelings of self-loathing and wretchedness. Will this grim scenario improve before it worsens? I believe it will—it must!

What we discovered about ourselves and those closest to us during the crisis is our need for companionship. Inter-dependency replaced self sufficiency as loneliness and abandonment stared us in the face. Never before had the world been forced to deal with so much loss and grief compacted into two years. We were caught totally off guard as we hastily renegotiated our familiar ties and grasped at alien equations. Let’s say, this is still a work in progress. I am trying—and frequently failing—to make sense of the chaos. My feelings are neither constant nor considered. Some days go better than others, but the lingering and dominant leitmotif remains the same—despair. Experts advise us to ‘take stock’ and move on. Sure. If only it was that easy. Young people, in particular, have been pushed into corners not of their choosing. Some have been stuck with partners they no longer love, having seen their worst side during the harsh and punishing lockdown. Now what? Unfortunately, the option to waltz away and start over is not available to all. Add to that the scramble to relocate to more economically-friendly destinations, take on unsuitable jobs, and manage the travails of ageing parents in need of care. These new realities have scarred a generation of youth who were on the brink of ‘great things’ before Covid killed their beautiful dreams.

Mercifully, the Third Wave was less cruel, and what's to come feels like something we are now equipped to brave. Huge, big sunflowers are turning their heads to the sun. There is a nip in the Mumbai air, as we wrap ourselves in cashmere. It’s worth identifying a few attainable pleasures and cherishing the small things that delight till the clouds lift. The world is never going to be the same again, so let’s stop kidding ourselves and rejig, reset our own wellness programme. A few harmless ‘treats’ a week is my formula—it could an extra Margarita on Saturday night, or shopping for bright, colourful wine glasses on Amazon. I sort of know what hits the right spots for me in challenging times. But knowing what is and is not achievable has generated a few overdue reality checks in my restless life. I am in Scarlett O’Hara mode these days, as I look up at the sky and tell myself, ‘After all, tomorrow is another day...”. So it is. Cin Cin!