It’s a white piece of cloth which I wear every day, not out of love but to brave the outdoors. The checked pattern on the cotton fabric has already faded under the summer sun, and the bands of elastic stapled onto either end have lost some of their snap and spring. And in all the bright shimmer of the seasons changing guard, the ink on the printed letters, ‘3M’, has begun to run… giving the gap-toothed, plastic rectangle sewn on it a careworn look.
For something that I use so often and is potentially life-sustaining, it has been treated rather like a stepmother by me. It’s not allowed inside the house – lying tossed away in a plain plastic jar by the entrance, waiting to be picked up by me for my next errand or evening walk. As far as masks go, mine’s not the smartest or even that hardy. Even so, L 17 222 114 has learnt to wrap itself tightly around the contours of my face, hiding my misgivings from the world outside.
William Shakespeare had once written, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women only players”. Our homes are now our green rooms where we spend time practicing our lines, before stepping out into the light. It looks like it’ll take some more time for the lockdown to be lifted here, and life as we knew it to limp back into a semblance of order. But even as the smoke drifts away in the breeze and the skies slowly begin to clear, chaos still reigns all over the planet – a falling of the old ways, a ripping out of the norm. And our lines are no longer bound in scripts of our choice.
From the lay to the powerful, the ordinary to the gifted, everyone will have their chance ‘exits and entrances’, as the bard had put it. But who will be the drummer that we’ll be marching to? For all the selfless work that’s being done by the anonymous ones, there’ll be fuck-ups and cover-ups in nations across the deltas, prairies and rainforests. And it’s our deep tracks that will get buried for lighter ones to show.
A month into being homebound, I still haven’t got used to breathing easily through my mask when I’m out in the open, or making my peace with a world that is holding its breath. Both will take practice and at some point, I’m sure, instinct will take over and skate the new normal. Slip it on, keep your distance, don’t go in too deep. Stay within yourself. Adapt.
Till then, I have the cooling rains to touch, drumming down from the skies in a sudden burst, like they did the other day. I have nights, still and dense, with more stars aglow than I can remember. And I have my mask to sling around my neck, hoping that it won’t be too long before I show my real face again. But will I be able to recognise myself then, I wonder…
Uddalak Gupta is a brand communications consultant based in Delhi NCR, who likes to write on the side. This piece was originally posted on May 1, 2020 on his FB wall, shortly after the pandemic had begun.
Illustration by Arundhati Barkataky
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