India, March 9 -- "All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right, And emptiness above."
These lines from Vikram Seth's haunting poem, All You Who Sleep Tonight, says much of what we felt through the pandemic. Because it didn't just change our world. It left us staring at a void we had to learn to navigate.
In the early days of the lockdown, the silence was eerie. No honking of cars, no shouting vendors, no laughter spilling from cafes - just the sound of one's breath in the houses the more fortunate among us never left. The world shrunk to four walls and an internet connection. Days blurred. We woke up, worked, worried, on a loop.
The unfortunate among us lost loved ones without as much as a proper goodby...