Analogikal

Isolation is a luxury many may not experience in their time. It is a luxury because you have a physical space to isolate. It is a luxury because you are of sound mental health to survive the same. The pandemic and its associated lockdowns have made me think more about the reality, the discrimination and the inequality that has become part and parcel of what we call the human experience.

When the first set of lockdowns got put in place, people bolted up and cut loose any possible risky elements. The less privileged part of the population that props up the glorious facade of life, were suddenly a less than desirable and, in some cases, a risky component. Whole communities boarded up and relied on their phones for survival. At least the ones who could afford it. The ones who couldn’t, venture out to enable the self-inflicted isolation for the elite few. All domestic aides were being cast into the oblivion of uncertainty and financial jeopardy. The ones wearing masks and sitting in their ivory towers wrote on walls and feeds about how people should be responsible, wear masks and isolate. For the ones who couldn’t afford isolation, the pandemic was a probable path to death, but hunger would have been a definite one.

We locked up. Once in 2020 and now once again in 2021. There are six of us who are locked up in what used to be a workplace. Now it is where we live, where we work and where we do everything else. It has been 4 weeks since my feet touched anything other than the concrete floors of the factory. We are isolated. We are well fed. It is a luxury. It is something I never thought I would be able to afford. We locked ourselves up so that we can continue earning on behalf of the ones who could not come to work. We locked ourselves up so that people don’t have to choose between hunger and death. I couldn’t make rent for 5 months in 2020. Had it not been for a landlord who was considerate and the versatile usages of potatoes I would not have survived the pandemic. The physical being might have. The rest of me might not have.

I don’t know where we are headed. Where I stand gives me hope but what I see, saddens me. Even amid death and disruption, people are having ideological warfare on walls and feeds. I lower my gaze away from the horizon. There is only so much I can take in without hating myself for the luxuries I have. The most disturbing conversations I have throughout the day is about convincing my parents to get vaccinated. I am grateful for the safety I feel and the optimism I feel for the few that surround me. When I look at the horizon, all I see are the bars that separate us and the chasms that keep us apart. I don’t have the ability nor the will to settle the chasms and break the bars, for now. I wish safety for the ones who cannot afford it and kindness towards the ones who are not used to it.

Till then.