“My whole life has changed this year,” my pre-teen daughter suddenly announced one evening. We were all sitting around the living room, as we usually do these lockdown evenings, each of us doing our own thing — reading, doing a crossword, checking messages on our phone. She explained,“ This is the year I moved house, moved out of junior school, and now COVID is happening.” Then she looked around at us and observed, “Only the people remain the same.”
People. The same people. The days I stay at home, I see my parents and my children playing Scrabble, and I find my children making word after word that I didn’t even realise they knew.
I usually spend my time at home telling my history-loving teenage son to come back from some ancient war zone to the 21st century and finish his homework. These days, without any nudge from me, I find him washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen to save me the effort. I didn’t know he even noticed!
One day, I come out of my home office and can’t find my children anywhere. I panic. Did they go out, during lockdown? No, they’re in our balcony with their grandfather, watering and tending to the plants since the gardener can’t come. I watch as he tenderly snips off dead parts, waters the roots, all the while explaining to the children why that helped the plants, in his gentle soothing voice. He explains to them how he learnt about plants in his village in Assam, and how fertile the land is there. Story after story of his childhood emerge along with the dead leaves and weeds. My hardcore city brats listen enraptured, and I suddenly have a flash of, not the father I know, but the man he once was – a bright young man from a remote village in a corner of the country, bold enough to dream of the stars, and determined enough to reach them.
Another day, I come out of my home office to find my mother and daughter chatting away. My daughter is telling her stories. Not to be outdone, my mother tells her stories back – imagination pitched against imagination, the old-gentle, traditional grandmother versus the young, brash, teen to be. As my mother laughs, I see my daughter in her. I see her, not as my mother, not as the person who fed us soup when we were sick and made sure our lives ran smooth, but as a young woman brimming with talent, who loves good stories and a good time. It’s still there, that spirit – it takes a granddaughter and a lockdown to bring it out.
Human beings are like onions, someone once said, you peel one layer, and you get another. To me, human beings are multi-hued jewels. You think you know them. Yet you only see the side you want to see. It takes a virus and a lockdown to shine and reveal their full glorious beauty.
Tapas 