Skip to main content

Changed Lives

The use of intrusive technology to help us return to normal is becoming routine and acceptable. The use case today is sensing elevated body temperature and certainly the virus is not the only reason that someone has a fever. People are being required to get habituated to very odd things these days - be scanned and monitored, if showing symptoms of the virus told to just ride it out alone in their home, being asked why they are out and about, if they are teachers be okay watching parents ride side-car with their students at home. 

In ordinary times, none of this would sound normal and that does not even begin to count the mental health problems from social isolation, living with abusive domestic partners, loss of livelihood and so on. The idea that all of this serves the greater goal of saving as many human lives from the virus does not make the conditions more bearable for those who are suffering in other ways. 

I have a few older relatives that could be described as feisty - they like being independent and doing their own thing without interference from anyone. Today, some of them have been pushed close to their breaking point. One aunt is diabetic and in her town there is no access to fresh produce. To add to her woes her very old mother is in the hospital with renal failure. 

M feels entrapped in ways that are completely new to her. A dying mother, mounting hospital expenses, a retired husband who looks to her to lead the family, her only kid in another country, working from home in a job that was never designed to be remote, eating the same meal for going on two months. Nothing changes for her from one day to the next. People like her are at a point where they would be willing to give up a lot for the right to the life they had before this. Those more vulnerable than M would have been at the point sooner and the rest of us will get there in a matter of time. This is a war of attrition no one can win. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...