In search of lost time

This weekend has cast an additional shadow of gloom over my mind and not because of something that has happened. In fact, what did not is the reason for my despair. We had planned early in January that both our daughters and the kids would be with us in Karachi at this time. Flights had been booked and tentative engagements had been set.

No big deal, surely. Covid-19 has caused immensely more severe and more tragic disruptions in the lives of countless families across the globe. The disaster that is staring us in our face is of apocalyptic proportions. And for a person of my age, staying alive is the only task that is assigned to me by my family – that is, my daughters. It is the same for their mother, my wife.

In any case, I have mentioned this personal setback of an emotional kind to underline certain facets of ordinary life that are shared by a large number of people. Old parents have been left alone while their children have planted their lives in faraway places. My elder daughter is in southern California and the younger one is in northern Italy.

WhatsApp exchanges and video calls have their therapeutic value but there is no substitute for being together in real time. In our case, it is travelling together that truly fosters the dreams that we cherish. Memories of one vacation sustain us until the next and since a few years, we try to get the family together three or even four times a year, rotating our meeting points. Realistically, there is not much more time left to celebrate this togetherness.

My wife and I are still able to walk some miles and climb stairs. We are still good for medieval towns lodged in mountainous terrain. But this grace period is a gift that cannot last. Hence, this interval that is injected by the coronavirus crisis is stealing precious time from us and we do not know how long it will take for normal air travel to be restored.

Meanwhile, my wife and I have been in self-isolation for nearly four weeks, spending time with large frames of group photographs on the walls, some of which were taken on exotic and scenic locations. They remind us of a time when, as they say, the world was our oyster. It was not so long ago – and I was able to visit Italy for ten days just in early February this year merely because my daughter said she was missing me. Yet, that time seems ages ago and one is not sure if it will return in the near future.

There is this suspense and a sense of helplessness about what can happen in the coming days and weeks and months. Again, the inability to meet your dear ones who live abroad is only a minor part of the great uncertainties that hover on the horizon. We are unable to comprehend the challenges that lie ahead. In Pakistan, we have our peculiar worries. There are intimations of a major disorder.

It is against this darkling landscape that family and personal relationships are so important. I need not refer to the studies that have deduced that relationships are indispensable for a happy life, more important than wealth or fame or power. One’s family and friends, thus, become a defence against mental illness. We need this shield to protect ourselves from the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.

This is why one of the prescriptions for remaining calm during a stressful lockdown is to keep in touch with your relatives and friends. This, of course, is only possible in the virtual sphere. There are other ‘comfort’ activities that are suggested, the main being books and movies. Social media is an outlet and different people have found their own remedies.

But the rhythm of how this time in isolation is being spent is, I sense, changing. This week, I have found many friends in a somewhat depressed state of mind. One reason is the uncertain prospect of a fearful growth in the number of people infected by the virus. The next two weeks are seen to be critical.

My column titled ‘Imran’s Hamletian dilemma’ was published on March 22. Apparently, that dilemma has not yet been resolved. Also, the lockdown is not working and Friday saw some ugly scenes that defied the principle of social distancing. Simultaneously, the poor and the dispossessed are getting restive, despite concerted efforts to provide them with some assistance.

People imprisoned in their own homes are infected with anxiety and unable to make good use of the time that now hangs heavy on their hands. This is an irony, because time is always in short supply. It is a precious resource. However, we now have it in abundance and no one knows how many more days this isolation will last.

At the outset, I spoke about this weekend. But there is no distinction between weekdays and weekends. We now have, as the idiom goes, a month of Sundays. Even the calendar that marks seasons and festivals seems a bit irrelevant. It seems so useless that the environment is cleaner and the sky is bluer and there was that heavenly super pink moon in the sky on Tuesday.

This holy week of Easter was not celebrated as usual in the Christian world. Auspicious it certainly is not but the crisis was born with the Chinese New Year that began this year on January 25, traditionally a great event that lasts for almost ten days. It was the same with the March 21 Nauroze in Iran and some parts of Central Asia.

Hopefully, there will be time to make amends in the new world that is to be born, though the time of its birth is not yet known. We should be able to celebrate. And go out in the open on crowded streets. And travel. And meet our families across large distances. For that, we will have to stay alive and preserve our sanity. Then, we will have to rebuild our society – which was broken even before the crisis hit us.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com