Memoirs Of My Quarantine

By Priyanka Sukhija

First half of 20th century was full of events that affected mankind for decades to come - The world wars, the great depression, the Spanish flu pandemic. The first half of 21st century is turning out to the same with the 2008 financial crisis, the outbreak of viral flus like Ebola and H1N1. This book is a view into my life during the latest buzzword of a pandemic, the Coronavirus COVID-19

• Language: English
• Publisher: Priyanka Sukhija
• Release date: Jul 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393844204

Book preview

Dedicated to

My Daugther Myrah, my family and loved ones

Thanks to my Editor

Navneet Arora

Introduction

First half of 20th century was full of events that affected mankind for decades to come - The world wars, the great depression, the Spanish flu pandemic. The first half of 21st century is turning out to the same with the 2008 financial crisis, the outbreak of viral flus like Ebola and H1N1. This book is a view into my life during the latest buzzword of a pandemic, the Coronavirus COVID-19.

Quarantine Day 1

As the world economies continue tumbling, and nations start locking down, I was walking to my office yesterday thinking how long Germany will resist closing things down. I broke my foot on my way to work, right outside the office building. It was sunny when I left home and after like 10 minutes it started to rain, when I was about to reach office a bad storm broke with heavy rain and winds. There is a restaurant at the corner of the office building, and the hoarding outside the restaurant directly fell on my foot with full force. For one, my fear was where will I go in these times, it is not safe. But, after a while, I felt better and discarded any possibility of a fracture. I took off from office early after finishing one of the important meetings. I spoke to people in my office if they are getting any groceries and essentials taken care of, no one seem to care.  show me A colleague showed me how many deaths happen around the world every year because of flu / common cold, so why all this panic; I politely differed. I tried to convince them that this is different, aloof of the fact that by evening the whole country will be put on hold. 

It is a normal Saturday for us, somehow I am rejoiced that for a few days we can work from home, I will get to be with Maisha and Neil the whole day. I always question if we live only to go to office, entire day I spend in office, I come home grumpy, get upset over small things. I woke up really relaxed, we go out to the cafe for breakfast and coffee. I order eggs and salad, Maisha sticks to waffles, strawberries and apple juice. We drink our coffee slowly and talk how we are going to manage work from coming week with Maisha being at home. We try to explain to her how things will be changing for us from next week. She seems alright for now, trying to absorb all the information. She asks lots of questions about the virus. The weather has been really nice for typical Berlin March.

Neil goes out to get the final lot of groceries trying to stock for next two weeks, in case the essentials also close. The shelves are mostly empty, not a surprise; this has been the case for last two weeks. He picks whatever he thinks can be a lifesaver in coming weeks if things go really bad, canned foods, one of the last 2 bottles of oil on shelf, and so on. We do not know what will happen and what can happen, it is all blurry. 

In the evening, we went to a friends place, travelling by public transport right now seems ok, though we try to shrink in a corner if anyone enters and comes close to us. We carry a hand sanitizer and tissues with us all the time. The rental cars do not go to her place, we plan to stay overnight as I am not so sure to travel back late in the night. 

We order Pizza at the friend's place, keeping the evening light and make some crazy TikToks, my second Tiktok video. I spent more time trying to figure out how to use the app, I struggle with every new app and device already; may be I am getting old? Nah!

We all chat, laugh and talk about our thoughts for the upcoming times. It is always interesting to know and talk about different perspectives and share our emotional turmoils. We then watch the movie Salt, I really loved it. Kids also put up a temporary bed in the living room and sleep beside us. We sleep peacefully around 4 am with lots of chatter and late night tea. This is our favourite part when we are up till late, after all the party and alcohol in the end, we come back to the basics and in my case it is Tea. We say good night and everyone heads to their own bed.

Quarantine Day 2

I woke up with sun rays directly on my face, my freind's house has a dachterrasse (an outside terrace / patio), and in the night we forgot to close the shutters. She has placed the bed in a way to get light directly in mornings. I lie down on the bed for sometime, thinking about when we came to this house for the first time. It was the house-warming party. We were returning from Poland back from a short trip. We booked early train tickets to  be able to reach on time. 

Soon, I hear kids giggling and running downstairs. I went down and sat in the courtyard with my legs crossed on the floor, Neil and my freind join me. Noone wants to talk, we are just happy to be there sitting and watching the clear blue sky and smiling in between. 

After a while, we all go indoors and start with the breakfast preparation. We all eat together- yummy aloo parathas with yogurt. We then leave for home. On the way, I notice that nothing looks different for now; there are as many people outside as on any other weekend in the Metro. We cross a park and see that it is full of kids.

Everyone is relaxed and enjoying the sunny Sunday in March. I notice a homeless man on street collecting bottles for money, I wonder if he knows what is happening from tomorrow? There may not be enough people on the street and less beer bottles for him to collect. In Germany, for every glass and plastic bottles you return to the store, you get money back. So, many people who drink beer in the park or walking on the street leave the bottles there itself, which homeless can collect and it makes them good money for food and necessities. It is very common here to drink alcohol at any time of the day, anywhere from metro, parks (kids playing, parents drinking), roads etc. Some of the busy streets feel like it is almost illegal to be on the street unless hold a beer bottle in your hand. Germans love their beer.

We also take a break in the park in front of our house; Maisha wants to play for some time. I was little reluctant at first, but then gave in looking at everyone else. I made her promise to take a bath as soon as we are home. Neil fetches two beer bottles for himself. I gave him the look, but it does not change his mind. We spend the afternoon there, relaxing. I then get a call from my cleaning lady, she is standing outside the house, which I totally forgot about. We rush home and greet her.

She starts with the cleaning and we start with the preparations for next day. But, this Sunday is different, I am not running to plan menu for the whole week or finish ironing for the week. I am relaxed, so I just prepare for dinner and let the time take its own course. I watch some TV and browse news around the world, reading how different countries are preparing for the Virus. Global number of confirmed cases stands at 156,400, with