Lockdown Diaries: Random thoughts on 50 days of isolation

Morgan Housel, one of my favourite modern-day writers had mentioned in his blog that now is a great time to start a diary. Having completed 50 days of home isolation yesterday, I thought it’s a good time to pen down some of my thoughts, more for my own future consumption than anything else. So, here goes, in no particular order:

Greatest Concern: I am most concerned about the health and well-being of the generation above me — my mother and mother-in-law. They are 74 and 64 respectively and have preexisting conditions. How to keep them safeguarded once the lockdown ceases, will be the biggest question I will be grappling with. There are no easy answers, but it helps that both are right here with us, and both have shown tremendous flexibility and propensity to comply with a new set of rules, while keeping their sense of humour intact.

Silver Lining: Children! I don’t know how we would have survived the lockdown without them. Everyday, they test our limits with their tantrums and fights, but everyday, they spread positivity and cheer through the house. Their presence has been the single-biggest positive contributor to our mental well-being. I am amazed at how well they have adjusted to the new normal, and how they continue to keep their wits about them! There is a new antic almost everyday (usually with the 3-year-old girl as the perpetrator, and the 6-year-old boy as the victim), which makes us break out of our routine into peals of laughter. And that’s priceless!

Murphy’s Law: We had our trinity of bad luck during the lockdown. First up, my mother-in-law got shingles and had to be on rest and medication for a few days. Second, our fridge decided to commit suicide without any prior warning. It took us 4 days to find a solution (thanks to our friends and neighbours), but those were 4 days of stress. Third, our full-time help got chicken pox and had to be quarantined in a room for 19 days! I hope the bad luck ends here — looking back, even though these incidents caused stress and workload, we are thankful for our privilege where bad luck equals a broken fridge and additional housework.

Work Structure: Working from home has been challenging. I had never really done it before, and it’s taken some getting used to. There is an unhealthy amount of time that gets spent on phone calls, and the lines between work hours and non-work hours, between weekdays and weekends have blurred. And, it has never been easier for work-related stress to carry over into other aspects of your life. Two important lessons for me — (i) create a workspace and a weekday routine, and (ii) use headphones if you care for your neck.

Video Socializing: The weekly / fortnightly catch up with friends has now been replaced by video calls. In addition, I have done zoom catch-ups with friends from school, college, Australia, etc – which wouldn’t have happened in the normal course. Overall, I‘ve realized that I am not missing stepping out at all – for the moment, video calls are doing a good temp job.

Mental Wellbeing: There are days when I am a doomsday prophet, and there are days when I am a beacon of positivity. Thankfully, the latter have started outnumbering the former. On Covid-19, I am now firmly a glass-half-full guy, but the cause of worry is the collateral damage to the economy. My children are the best stress-busters, probably a better fix than meditation, which I am still to get hooked to.

Exercise: What started as a resolve to work out as frequently as possible, has resulted in 50 consecutive days of working out. Home workouts have been easy to transition to, and I may never go to a gym again. The daily discipline is driven more by mental health factors — those endorphins do go a long way into making the day better. I do miss running outdoors, though!

Sleep: Looks like the lockdown has managed to undo the progress of the last few years on improving my sleep. The main reason is that late nights (after everyone is asleep) are the only alone-time I can get. So, the 3 AM bedtime is back after years, and sleep hours have dropped. I feel like an addict who has fallen off the wagon — immensely enjoying the quiet time every night, and cursing myself every morning after.

Haircut: After 5 weeks in, I finally buckled and let my wife give me a haircut. She wanted to go for the Jason Statham look, but we settled on a Langda Tyadi variant instead. With limited tools (just an electric shaver), she managed to do a fabulous job. One child broke into tears at my new look, and the other one loved it so much that he wants the exact same one.

Housework: Thanks to my wife’s impulse-purchase instincts, we had a vacuum cleaner in the house, practically unused till last month. I wish her foresight had extended to a dishwasher purchase, because washing utensils (especially after an Indian meal for 7) is easily the worst kind of household chore. If you had to rank household chores in order of quality on a scale which goes from Abhishek Bachchan at bottom to Amitabh Bachchan at top, washing utensils comes in at Uday Chopra, i.e. off the scale.

Cooking: I am amazed at how all 3 women in my house can just walk into the kitchen and cook something up promptly. I, on the other hand, need hours of preparation and research. As a result, I’ve been promoted to cooking duties for special occasions or when when there is a specific craving (read: I‘ve been taken off the daily roster due to my inefficiency). I‘m not complaining, though — there has been occasion or craving (mostly mine), for desserts, pizzas, samosas, and a few more.

Sports: In every grey phase of my life, live sporting action was always at hand to provide some distraction and cheer. The Arsenal double in 2002, The Kolkata Test Match in 2001, Bergkamp’s final season including the memorable Bergkamp Day in 2006 are all examples. IPL was sorely missed this year, and how unfortunate will it be for Liverpool, if the PL season gets abandoned without a result! Hopefully sports will be back soon.

Media: I realized that most of my OTT consumption used to happen during work travel and daily commutes, and it has dipped now. I could last for only one episode of Tiger King before abandoning it, but I’m now hooked to Fauda. Succession was decent, and then Homeland had its final season, with a fitting series finale — will be sad to see this one go. Next on the list is the new season of Better Call Saul and The Test.

Reading: I managed to go through only 2 books, primarily because the first one I picked was a mammoth 900-pager which I struggled to finish. It’s a book called The Prize by Daniel Yergin, which chronicles the history of oil (and by extension, of humanity). I would give it 5/5 for content, but 2.5/5 for editing. By contrast, the second book was a fast, pacy, topical one that I finished in 3 days — Catch and Kill, by Ronan Farrow, on the Harvey Weinstein case. Gets a solid 4/5 from me, and recommended for everyone, unless its a triggering topic.

Personal Investing: For someone, who has always been 80–100% invested in equities, this has been an extremely challenging period. I have to keep reminding myself, that God has been kind in the 2013–2018 period and that I have been through worse, having lost every penny of my savings in the 2008 crash. Nevertheless, it drives home the fact that investing is a psychological battle and is not for the faint-hearted. March was depressing, but April has been better, and it underlines my view that while we will be in a sideways/downward phase for some time, markets will rebound much before the economy, thanks to unprecedented levels of global liquidity.

Deaths: Last week brought news of untimely demise of two Hindi Cinema stalwarts, Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor. The first one hit me hard — Irrfan was just 54, and an actor at his peak in new-age Bollywood, which had started accepting unconventional lead actors. My favourite Irrfan performance is The Namesake —a role he essayed with understated brilliance. The second favourite is Maqbool, where he stood tall amongst powerhouses like Pankaj Kapur, Piyush Mishra, Tabu, etc. As far as ChintuJi is concerned, he was the no-nonsense straight-talking guy that Bollywood needed. I loved his early years, but his performances in Do Dooni Chaar, and Kapoor & Sons are indicative of a promising second innings cut short. Rest in Peace, gentlemen!

The Pandemic: My views on the pandemic have evolved, starting with extreme panic in the beginning, to a more optimistic perspective now. There are no right or wrong viewpoints, and nobody knows what the future holds for us — so might as well look at the glass half-full. Of course, our perspectives are driven by our own experiences, so optimism can change to cynicism very quickly if the disease suddenly hits close to home. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t.

China: China has received a lot of brickbats for being responsible for starting the disease (probably unfair), and for not being as transparent as possible (probably not so unfair). However, we need to look at China not as an antagonist for the disease, but as a protagonist for the recovery. I believe the Chinese will lead the way on how to bounce back, and it would be stupid to not take a leaf from their book.

United States: The so-called leader of the free world has been a complete mess when it comes to handling the pandemic. The US did everything wrong to start with — including delay in containment, petty federal politics, confused communication, etc. However, I believe that the US is most likely to lead the way in finding a solution. That is just down to the incentives of capitalism, and no one does capitalism better than Uncle Sam.

India: It’s tough to look at the big picture when you are seeing cases spike in your neighbourhood, but I believe that there is something going for India. The positive testing rate in India is well below 5%, with an extremely narrow testing criteria. I don’t know if it’s a mutation of the virus, or if it’s the climate, or the BCG vaccine — whatever it is, the rate of spread in India is much lower. We have our own unique challenges (density, poverty, inadequate healthcare infra, etc), but seems like we have some rub of the green too.

Government Action: The authorities in India have been very proactive, and they get a 7/10 from me on containment measures. However, they have failed to strike a balance between containment of the disease and containment of the economic fallout. On economic measures, they get a 2/10, which brings their overall score in my book, to a mediocre 4 or 5. I am sure there are plans for the economy, and I hope it’s not a case of too little too late.

Solution: A lot of people have pinned their hopes on an early vaccine. I am not so optimistic about a vaccine coming through in 5 months, but lets hope for the best. A vaccine is a perfect solution, but there could be a number of imperfect solutions, like partial treatments (HCQ, Remdesivir, plasma, etc). My big hope is on a testing solution which is quick, cheap and scalable, and which could facilitate a return to some form of normalcy. Also, I am hoping for natural mutation of the virus to a version which is less deadly (something that happens in many viruses, to enable them to survive longer).

Way forward: Predicting the future is tough in general, but now, it is almost impossible. That said, the gambler in me can’t resist taking a position. Here is my bold prediction for the future: (a) By October 2020, we would have returned to 75% normalcy, and the disease will become a sidebar, and (b) By June 2021, we would have returned to 95% normalcy and the disease would have become a footnote. Don’t ask me for the rationale, but I will be willing to take on a wager! The real question is, what damage (economic and life) would the disease cause in the interim?

Gratitude: In times like these, you can’t help but feel grateful for what you have. I am thankful for having my family close to me. And thankful for the fact that my work gives me the luxury to not take undue risks. At the same time, I am acutely aware of my privilege, and the fact that most do not enjoy the same luxury, especially the frontline health workers who are risking their lives everyday. More importantly, I am grateful for the generosity of people around me.

Coming from small-town Calcutta, initially, life in Mumbai took some getting used to. One of my pet peeves was the heady indifference among people, with no concept of neighbourhood or community. But, in the last few weeks, things have changed significantly, and people have come together as a community like never before.

In our apartment complex, there are a group of warriors (for lack of a better word), who have taken it upon themselves to ensure health and safety of the society. These folks have contributed their own money, time and resources for the fight, and more importantly, exposed themselves to a higher degree of risk for the benefit of others. If this was not enough, they have even stepped in to resolve individual problems (including our refrigerator issue). I am overwhelmed with their initiative, kindness and selflessness. I want to end this ramble by expressing my sincere gratitude to these warriors. Hopefully, we will find a way to repay you for your generosity!