In the 21st century, travel and the internet have made the world seem smaller. People have become used to living away from the home they grew up in, travelling from their village to a big city, from their country to another, in search of work, to study, to fulfil a dream. Indeed, we are global citizens so many of us, with more than one place that we call home, used to living far away from our loved ones. We are used to communicating through computers and cell-phones and know that we will see our friends and family on our next vacation.
But when there is a crisis, your natural instinct is to turn to your loved ones, to want to go home. On March 8, the government of Lombardy announced that the entire region and several other parts of northern Italy, would be under complete lockdown. That night, thousands of people who had moved up north to work and study boarded trains from Milan to rejoin their families in the south.
As soon as the coronavirus broke out in California, Arvind, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mala (names changed) and their two young children, was all set to fly back home to India. His wife refused. She believed they were better off in the US. This was when there were very few cases of the virus in India. Yet Mala foresaw that their family would not necessarily be safer in India. “It’s a global phenomenon, India’s just a few weeks behind us,” she said.
Mala is a working mother, and with the children at home from school, she must deal with home, children and her job, often working late into the night after everyone has gone to sleep. I can tell from her regular texts to me that she is exhausted and worried, but she is positive, in fact heroic in her efforts to smile through this lockdown even as she fears for her aging parents in India.
Staying connected
My friend Paru Agarwal, an Indian in Milan who, like me, has an Italian husband and two children, is likewise heroic. When I asked her if the lockdown has been hard on her, she had only positive things to say. She says she has become closer to her family in India – they stay in touch more through social media and phone calls, and she has been flooded by messages of concern from long-lost childhood friends and members of her extended family. And while parenting two small kids at home all day is challenging, she is making the most of this time together.
“They are spending more time with me so it’s improving their Hindi a lot!” she said with a laugh. “Plus, I am managing to wake up early every day and get closer to my inner self: I do yoga, meditation, mantra chanting, and try to follow the Ayurvedic lifestyle. It helps me stay calmer through this crisis.”
Paru’s words helped me see things from a different perspective. My husband, two young children and I have been on lockdown since the beginning of March. My children and I have not stepped out at all. My husband has left the house twice to buy groceries (a once-enjoyable, now-unnerving experience). It has been a month since we saw my husband’s father and sister who live in other parts of the city, even longer since we saw our friends.
I have a sister in Denver, where my mother is visiting now – and will probably remain for who knows how much longer – and another sister in Pennsylvania, and aunts and uncles across the US. I also have family in India, UK and friends everywhere in the world. Like so many others, I don’t just follow coronavirus news in Italy, but pretty much everywhere in the world.
Fearing the worst
Sandeepa, a writer and blogger based in the US, shares my conflict. “This week, my dad, who lives in India, was prescribed a battery of blood work and medical tests due to some other condition and as he was going about diagnostic centers and hospitals by himself, I felt so helpless,” she said. My friend Anna, a lawyer in Ohio, feels the same way about her aging father, who is in a retirement home in Florida: “If the worst is to happen, I won’t be able to go to him, I won’t be able to give him a funeral.”
This has indeed been one of the hardest things people who have lost loved ones have had to deal with during this crisis – not to be able to be with them in their last days, not to be able to perform their last rites. You can only grieve by yourself, at home.
In my desire to hear a happier story, I reached out to my Italian friends Mattia and Sonia. The couple usually live in Milan, with their bubbly three-year-old daughter Stella, but have a second home in a small seaside town near Genova, where Sonia’s family lives. I was that they had managed to leave Milan before the lockdown, to give Stella the fresh air and family time we all yearn for. Yet when I asked Sonia what it was like, she said, “My mother lives 7 km away but it may as well have been 7,000, because we cannot see each other. My brother lives in the same building as us, but we don’t see him either. It’s so hard, because we are so close and yet so far!”
My two friends also feel that this pandemic has brought out the worst in people – two days ago, Sonia was rebuked by a stranger on the street when she was out buying vegetables with Stella. And when Mattia stepped out of the house to buy medicines at the local pharmacy, a passerby insulted him for not wearing a mask. Mattia and Sonia both feel that people are forgetting to be decent to one another.
Does technology really make you closer?
When I asked Madhubanti Bhattacharya, an editor in London, what the distance was like for her, she told me: “Over the last 17 years, through technological advances, the distance between my parents in India and me in the UK has felt like it’s shrunk. But in the days since Covid-19 has led to lockdowns and closed borders around the world, I’ve come to realise that this technology-induced sense of the world getting smaller and people closer together is a facade, bolstered by choice. The choice to get on an aeroplane, the choice to have those conversations face-to-face at a time of our choosing…” Indeed, choice is an essential factor in how we feel about isolation and lockdown.
Sara Brown (name changed) is a young American woman with Indian roots, who is studying for her PhD at the University of California. When I asked her how she felt about social isolation, she said: “It is very strange…To a large extent, my local situation is an extremely fortunate one – as a graduate student and TA [teaching assistant], I’m still assured of my stipend and health insurance, which means I can pay my rent, get groceries, and most importantly, get medical assistance when needed! The same cannot be said of many others my age.”
Sara finds that isolation can be very difficult and draining. “I am not used to living in a place where one has to drive a few miles to encounter clusters of life, such as an outdoor shopping center or a university campus. So even when I was allowed to move freely, I had limited access to centers of social life. Now, even those limited access points are unavailable.”
Sara and her parents worry about each other. “Over the years, I have aggressively demanded independence from them and I have put a limit on the number of times they can call me or visit me etc. etc.,” she confessed. “They have patiently allowed for this distance! But this pandemic is making me think less childishly about their isolation and I do worry about it more.”
When I spoke to her father, he admitted that he worries about his daughter a great deal “since she’s in a hot spot and far away”. But, he said, “She is smart and cautious, not like some folks who are going about their lives as if everything is normal. We’ve talked extensively about proper hand-washing technique and about having access to facts and not to be swayed by misinformation. Young people are naturally social; isolation goes against their natural instincts. I try to discern her state of mind from her texts, then text and/or call her if I feel she needs a boost; it helps me too to talk to her.”
While everyone I spoke to was grateful for technology, most people agree that it cannot replace the physical. Sara’s mother worries not just about her daughter’s physical well-being (if she feels ill, will she be able to call an ambulance, go to a health centre, is there someone, a friend or neighbor who would help her?) But her deeper worry is “What being alone or a sense of aloneness, would do to her mind?”
An Indian in Europe
Italy was among the first countries outside China to be hit by the coronavirus, with frighteningly high numbers of deaths. By Friday, more than 18,800 deaths had been reported and the total number of deaths in Italy due to coronavirus has surpassed that of China. The rest of the world is watching Italy, worried they will be next, wondering what they can learn from the steps taken by the Italian government.
Esra Jung, a yoga and music teacher in the town of Mörfelden-Walldorf in Germany shared her rising concerns with me: “The phones at home are constantly pinging with messages asking about people’s health and even a little ‘corona gossip’ (where have you been? I know someone who has it and they went to a party and may have given it to people etc),” she said. “But the worst is knowing people who have it and who have it bad. There is nothing we can do to comfort them except give food and hope they come out of it soon.”
Looking to the future…
Esra said she was trying to stay calm and positive. “It is not a political crisis nor a war zone, so people are not blaming one another for creating this pandemic,” she said. “I’m also realising that whatever money and food we have, it’s enough to see us through this and it’s important that we learn to channel any negative energy into something productive.”
Srishti Khanna, an Indian designer based in Milan, struggles daily with living alone here while her family is back home: “All I pray for is that this nightmare ends soon. I am constantly anxious for my family back home in New Delhi, if something were to happen to either of us, we would not be able to say goodbye or hug each other. For now, I keep telling myself it’s a matter of time.”
This uncertainty over when you will see your parents or children or siblings again is a terribly frightening one. My husband and I try not to think about it. We can only count our blessings, and think about those who are facing bigger risks.
My childhood friend Tayana, who is now in Kolkata with her doctor husband and their baby, is constantly anxious about her husband, a gynaecological oncosurgeon. “The hospital is running out of masks, gloves and sanitisers and the amount of risk he is having to take in these trying times is monumental,” she said.
Tayana was balancing baby, housework, her own job, but remained positive “It is a strange time, a test of will, patience and kindness,” she said. “May we all emerge victorious.”
Neelini Sarkar is a freelance editor from India based in Italy.