Lockdown Diary: When will India look into the mirror ?

By the end of this crisis, besides joblessness, several thousand families would have seen an increase in domestic violence, girl children dropping out of school and a sharp rise in infant and maternal mortality rates.

Some marriages, held together only by the tenuous breathing space of busy, high-flying careers will have fallen apart. Others will see unplanned pregnancies.

Some people will come out better bakers and chefs. Mamas’ boys stuck alone in their IT-hub accommodations will now know how to make rajma, chhole, daal, rice, and chapa- tis. A few of them will also have perfected the art of quick kheer and packet wala cus- tard. For the poorer folk though, the only thing that will change is the degree of uncertainty.

“I just want to come back to Delhi,” Sharda aunty wept on the phone. I call her aunty not because she is related to me, but because she is about as old as my dad. And even though we are not related, she has called me pretty much every day of the lock- down, because the uncertainty is too much to bear all alone in an alien city where the locals are either suspicious of her or hostile or both.

“They can never know who I am,” she whispers urgently into the phone. “But I fear... one glance at me and they will know all my shameful secrets.”

Sharda aunty is a human trafficking sur- vivor who spent years stuck in a GB Road brothel before being rescued. And she is scared that any day, she can be thrown out of her rented accommodation in Nagpur. The man who lured her to Nagpur under the pretext of a job offer is no longer reach- able. And she has been left penniless, friend- less in a neighborhood where she knows not a soul.

I was at a crucial stage in the baking pro- cess when the phone rang. Elbow-deep in sticky challah dough, I asked my sister to answer the call and put it on loudspeaker.

“Namaste, madam. Shadab bol raha hoon.”I took a moment to respond.

Why was my auto driver from Hyderabad calling me?

“Namaste bhaiya, ek minute hold kijiye.”

I quickly ran to the kitchen and washed my hands. Somehow, I knew in the pit of my belly that this wasn’t a conversation to be had on speaker phone.

After exchanging customary pleasantries and greetings, he came to the point. His

family of eight people had no money left to get through the lockdown. Even the odd jobs had dried up and the police had become stricter than ever. He promised me he would return the money in 15 days.

I transferred the money to him through Google Pay. And told him to return it when- ever business picked up. The 15-day guaran- tee was not needed.

Just before hanging up, his old mother took the phone and thanked me in her bro- ken Hindi, heavily peppered with Telugu words. I didn’t quite understand what the old woman said. But the wobble in her voice was enough to cause a similar wobble in mine. After nearly eight Khuda Hafiz later, we managed to hang up.

“Hum waapis nahi aayenge.”

Who could have known that the goodbye would be final this time?

I last saw her at the community Christmas party organisedcby my reading club members. It was the last meeting of the season and we were all ready to take a break for the winter.

Mariam’s legendary mawa cake, courtesy Mrs. Khanna’s family recipe, was the last item to be served that evening.

“You have to teach me how to make this cake,” I fondly told her just as I got into my

car. “Once you are back, I need a full day’s solo lesson.”

“Anything for you, didi,” she chuckled.

We waved, we said our bye-byes, and that was that! 1st April was three months away. In those three months, my world changed little. I went to Hyderabad, joined the art department of a production, and came back when the shooting was halted on govt. orders. I settled into the tedium of lockdown routine and Netflixed-and chilled. Mariam went back to her native Jharkhand for Christmas. Her world turned upside down as scores of her relatives returned from the cities, starving and sick, with nothing but the clothes on their back.

“Hum waapis nahi aayenge.”

Mariam hated saying those words on the phone. But Mrs. Khanna understood. There was little she could to do to help. She trans- ferred her some money, yes, like all good employers have done during this difficult time. Mariam might return if the financial pressure of her situation becomes impossible to handle in Jharkhand. But it would leave her sisters vulnerable to alcoholic husbands freshly returned from the cities, with their bruised egos and no pots of gold to show for it.

Even if she chooses to stay back, where is the assurance that her mere presence will keep the others safe?