It was in the year 2002 if my guess was right, I was working in the Air Intelligence Unit at the Hyderabad International Airport. It was that year that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS as it was affectionately called set its foot on earth and Singapore was one of the countries to bear the brunt. But here in India we never had any panic situation and working at the airport, I too didn’t feel any. I was one among those to receive the passengers from Singapore aboard the Silk Air flight. No precautions were taken; no masks used and not to mention sanitizers. Days passed and the SARS went off into oblivion without affecting any Indian. We then thought yeah! SARS doesn’t affect us we Indians, probably our DNA structure was too strong and our immunity was too good for the virus. This was enough of a fodder to boost our racial supremacy.
Come 2019 December, news of the Wuhan virus started trickling and again the false racial supremacy among us started to surface and we in general and I in particular had the feeling that this is another SARS which would just come and go and it wouldn’t do a scratch on an Indian for the simple reason that we take turmeric, garlic and rasam. The social media was full of memes and stuff highlighting our racial supremacy and making fun of other’s misery. This didn’t live long as cases started to pour in – first like a brook then a stream and now a flooded river. All the supremacy which was nurtured by false information fell crashing and a state of paranoia crept in. I was not an exception. I was too conscious of my surroundings; washing hands often and hitting the shower as soon as I returned home. In spite of all the care and precaution, the virus did pay me a visit.
It was on a Saturday night that I woke up following an excruciating pain in my stomach probably because of food poisoning of the previous dinner. There was fever the next day and the following five days. I never experienced any symptoms of the COVID-19 virus mentioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) but for a persistent fever. With the fever not subsiding and on the advice of a doctor, I got my blood tested for a fever profile. Next to the blood sample collection Centre there was a drive-in counter for COVID testing. It was just a thought that I had then that I walked in to get the swab test done – Just to rule out a possibility.
The next day my reports came in confirming me of Typhoid and it was a relief, Thank God it wasn’t COVID. My relief was short lived as within a few hours, I got my COVID result as positive. The news was like a lightning bolt on my head. My whole world started crumbling. Though there was a recovery rate of 60% plus, my mind didn’t accept that rather it was focusing more on the 15000 plus deaths. Too much of negativity started to creep in. All the unwanted whatsapp messages started screening in my mind; the news of young people dying came again and again and broke me mentally. Staying alone, and not having the luxury of feeling a human touch for months, I desperately needed a shoulder to cry on and to relate my fear. I withdrew myself quietly to a corner and started to cry. I had doubts, whether I will be able to see my mother, whether I will be able to make peace with my kids, whether I will be leaving without having a taste of a good family life – all these doubts and questions tore me apart. I waited for a while, stopped thinking and let the negativity settle down. Closed my eyes and started to pray asking for the almighty to give me strength and resolve to fight this as I was not ready to die and that there was much more to life which I had to live. Nothing helps like a silent prayer – within minutes I was more composed and started to call my friends, family and colleagues to inform them. I did realize my worth when I started getting get well calls from my colleagues with whom I haven’t even spoken for years; Wishes started pouring from all over the world from Colombia to Canada, from US to Singapore, from Malta to Malaysia people praying for me; my family supporting me by the hour. I did then realize that there are many a people who love me for what I am and it is not the time for me to succumb to a damn miniscule virus. The only weapon I could use to fight the deadly disease was not just the medicine but confidence and self-resolve.
The first thing I did was to cut off the store house of negativity – yes I kept myself away from the TV channels and social media as they were incessantly transmitting fear and panic. Every passing day was a torture with the fever not subsiding and my struggle to take a profound breath. The anti-viral drugs and the antibiotics gave a metallic taste to my buds. Frequent checking of my temperature and my oxygen saturation levels kept my days busy with intermittent watching of feel good movies on OTT platform. It took 10 days to get away with the fever and another week for my breath to normalize. Though recovery was at a snail’s pace it started giving me confidence and I was back with my pranayama which was very tough to begin with. Today though I feel very much relived after walking this arduous journey of recovery, it would not have been possible but for the positivity and strength given to me by my family and friends and above all the grace of God.
COVID-19 approached me as a demon stripped me mentally and made me face the naked reality. It had given me an either – or situation. Either face the reality with objectivity and succeed or deal it with emotion and succumb. It made me see my innate qualities which all these years I ignored to discover. It made me realize the value of life and the metaphysical aspects of relationships by giving me a new and a broader perspective. Hence the title “my tryst with COVID”.
This virus has in fact made a profound impact that life after this pandemic would never be the same. I could see paranoia among people with most of them getting too cautious and in a way slipping into obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Suspicion among fellow human beings whether the other is infected or not has started to become the order of the day. Well! all said and done, my experience is an example that positivism and confidence is all we need to have in this hour and pessimism and negativism should be the ones we should be more careful of than the virus itself.
To end, I would like to quote the famous Australian Professional Golfer Jason Day’s words ““When you have a lot of confidence and you feel like nobody can beat you, it’s game over for everyone else.””
ASHOKAN SRINIVASAN