Niranjana Sunil
It is already past the day we were supposed to say goodbye to our friends and the “Pondy” life, if not for the microscopic villain who brought us into this house arrest. I can try really hard to summarize to outsiders what I meant by “Pondy” life but will probably end up with only a leaky pipe line. It was Alice’s wonderland; it made more sense as it made no sense. A strange concoction of languages, cultures and lifestyles.
It feels like 2019 ended and someone pressed fast forward to this strange, unprecedented era. The time in-between can only be recollected like a confusing dream. Our usual drama, drums and dance, the freedoms of 3AM, poetic exchanges with the beach and political tea times perspired in the necessity of a fight. 2020 kick-started with the smoke and fire of CAA, creating an unrest unlike anything we had ever seen before or engaged in. It was a grand political awakening for so many of us who hardly found time to look outside the books. However, it was illuminating to witness something fundamentally evil and prejudicial making us a singular power, joined in efforts to uphold the pillars of secularism, chanting against all unjust forces. Nothing seemed to be a threat anymore as we stood together (how ironical in today’s scenario). Even as that heat began to subside, our young politically charged minds kept fighting in face of other adversities that came by. The most promising minds left lectures to join protests and raised their voices.
Clearly we were already derailed from our usual peaceful routines when the world slowly knelt before a pandemic and media appeared hijacked by the virus. There was scattered agony as other Universities started sending back their students. Soon the chaos came for us too. We saw each other complaining about flight fares, crying on the lost time, worrying about unfinished work and contemplating the lack of solace each of us are bound to experience at our respective shelters. This place had become our home.
The story after reaching our camps differs for each of us, but I will try to put together a picture with all the inclusivity I can afford. As a psychology student I have personally received several calls and texts from confused friends. The uncertainty surrounding the situation had pushed us to limits. Many faced a drought in productivity and started panicking, unable to realize where it is going wrong. It was hard to help them understand while I experienced it myself. Though the reason was no hard riddle. We humans maintain mental stability by deriving meaning from a sense of continuity that life offers us. And when it is lost, we become lost. Things that kept us going had already turned unstable; we thereby moved to question all effort we invested.
When it comes to understanding humans, objectivity stands no chance against relatability. So I will now take you through the stories of some of my friends, like one of those movies with parallel plots where I hope the characters meet again soon. S, H and N will represent at least some of us. They are final semester students from different departments.
Home is a safe haven for many of us, but not for S. It is the place to which almost all of her most disturbing memories are attached to. She grew up with the bgm of loud shouting and breaking vases. Each day she relieves the pain from a past time, an uncomfortable grip on her hand as she tries saving her mother from a hit. She wakes up drenched in the nightmare of her reality, struggling to get off her bed. She constantly misses the deadlines of her new online schedules. As days pass by, it becomes harder for her to keep hoping for anything better.
N used to be lucky. She had pocketed a job through campus placement. Financial independence was her dream. N believed it would be her deliverance from an uncomfortable fate of arranged marriage. But the future lost promise when the economy fell. Her company was already found laying off staff. N’s conservative family does not allow her to talk to her friends who she usually confides with. She is tired of fighting the double standards set for her and brother at home.
H hails from a financially unstable family. His intelligence was only questioned by his own anxiety. But right now he is trying to process the possibility of a full-stop to his education and career. His father is not earning anymore, the ends hardly meet. He has panic attacks thinking of all the negative turns his life could take. His family has not seen him like this, they feel worried about him, but are helpless.
There are thousands of more such stories among us, continuing heard or unheard.
PU comforted all of us who came there with different dreams. It proved to us that life is enjoyable with a sweet-sour lemon tea. It helped us look at stars and draw out constellations of possibilities. Now that it has come to an abrupt break, we are lost in a limbo. As of now a saudade paints my waking hours grey. In the little bit of color that seeps in then and now, I dream of going back to my wonderland.
(Niranjana is a final semester MA Applied Psychology student in Pondicherry University)
