VersesInRed

My uncle died yesterday. I think it’s easy to guess the reason: Covid-19. It was all so sudden. He wasn’t exactly healthy, but he was taking the disease well with no significant complications. He was actually getting well. Then suddenly, he dies.
Worst part: I didn’t get to see him. Most of us didn’t.
He was always the kids’ favorite in our family. He would organize these incredible competitions at family get-togethers and come up with awesome riddles and puzzles. He was a friendly man, and he was one of the few who took the lockdown badly. He simply couldn’t survive without the daily visits to the local junction. It was always pleasant to talk to him.
He was a communist at heart, but he was open to all political ideas.
He once took me to see a play organized at the local temple Utsav. He knew I liked random knowledge and would often take his time out at quizzing me. Somewhere along the way, he had lost one of his legs, but I never heard him complain. He was never too proud to ask for help either. He knew when he needed a leaning hand, and he was more than happy to ask for it. He was a mix of both- he didn’t like spending too much time at someone else’s home, but he didn’t enjoy spending too much time alone either. He wasn’t your typical uncle. He was different. He had a certain kind of kindness and empathy, which made people comfortable around him. And I still can’t believe he is dead.
Sometimes I feel it’s wrong that I’m feeling so much pain about this. I mean, look at his own family or his best friends, or even my parents, people whose whole life had been filled with him. They must be the people who should be feeling this kind of pain, right? They must be the ones who should not be able to go on with their daily routines. Why am I feeling all of this? Am I doing any justification to his memory by directing my need to fail pain to his death? Or is what I am feeling real? Does it really hurt everyone this much when their uncle dies? I don’t know. Sometimes, I urge to call up my ex and cry and tell him every syllable I wrote here. I would have done so almost 2 months ago. But I know I won’t anymore. So here I came to vent again.

Its been almost a year since the infamous coronavirus invaded our lives. From excitement about being able to skip school and even skip exams, we students now yearn to escape from the monotonous days. The talk of vaccine is in the air, but it seems it’s stuck there. But I think that’s enough about coronavirus and its effects. The subject in itself has become boring.

So I started my day grumpily, waking up at 5:45 am to go to the gym where the exercise is mainly given to my cheekbones, smiling wearily at the “aunties” who so gracefully comment about every aspect of my life and their life and their neighbor’s lives and their relatives’ lives. Well, I could quickly fill in the whole blog this way. Still, I think it’s time to move on. Somehow tolerating the one and a half hours, I clumsily come back home in my father’s scooter.

Coming back home, I drink the tea prepared by my mom, who woke up at 4 am just to feed my father and me. Yes, it is a Great Indian kitchen in a sense. Still, I am enjoying my days until, finally, inevitably, I become part of some other Great Indian Kitchen. (a perfect reason to flee India the day I hear my parents talk about marriage).

At about 10 am, both my parents leave for work. Being alone at home is like having a boyfriend…pretty cool and exciting at first but dull once you realize there is nothing new there. And I sit clicking away at my laptop or scrolling my Instagram feed with senseless jokes and politics and selfies or scrolling through my Whatsapp with no BFFs or bfs to message.

At 11, my online classes start, well nothing much changes except there will be a minimized zoom window at the top right corner of my laptop. I play senseless otomes, read fanfictions resembling nothing of the magical world they were based upon, take quizzes to know if I am depressed, and live alternate lives. But sometimes, I hear a trigger word from my professors, something I was curious about, and my attention snaps back to the classes. As if sensing my attention, my classmates ( who, for all I know, look like M or N or A or C) ask a doubt by hearing which I get bored again, and my streak of 15 mins of productivity disappears. This goes on with breaks until 6, when I finally get up and drink my second cup of tea for the day again, dutifully prepared by my mother.

At about 6 pm, I get a random video call from my best friend informing me that she has reached her new hostel. This makes me extremely jealous. Here I am stuck at home listening to teachers who look 2 dimensional and attending classes with students whose faces are just large-sized letters. But, I, a dutiful friend, smile at her and hear her go on and on about how fantastic everything is. And when the call is over, my heart leaps. This is it. Today is the day she officially becomes your ex-best friend. You are never going to go back from this moment. Every moment both of us shared is now officially the past. And damn, that hurts. I look at my frequent contacts, and I realize: if the pandemic hadn’t happened, all of these people would have become a thing of my past long ago. But that moment, even if delayed by a year, is here. Soon I will also have to move on.

Am I ready to move on? I don’t know. Am I prepared to leave these people behind? I honestly have no idea. But I know what I am ready for. I am ready for tomorrow; even if it is monotonous or heartbreaking or exciting, it doesn’t matter. I am prepared for the next day. I am willing to wake up tomorrow, even if it is to do precisely what I did today.

SO LET TOMORROW COME!!!!