Six Feet Distance: Looking Back to Lockdown

By Ratan Bhattacharjee

Six Feet Distance is basically South Asian response to the Corona lockdown days. The writer focuses on the agonies and pains of the people from the viewpoint of a man dwelling in Kolkata in stories after stories which he wrote during the lockdown days and from direct experiences of people around him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665526739

Ratan Bhattacharjee

Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee, the Literamo Gold Star Awardee 2020 and INSC Research Excellence Awardee 2020, Best Professor of the Year Awardee 2020, and Member of International Advisory Board of the International Theodore Dresier Society, Philadelphia, USA is Associate Professor and Head Post Graduate Dept of English, Dum Dum Motijhel College and a trilingual poet columnist. His The Ballad of the Bleeding Bubbles is translated into Assamese as Raktakta Burburanir Malita, his best seller Oleander Blooms made him well- known as ‘Oleander Poet’ besides his other books including Our Daughter, Our Princess, Renee–Rudhagnee, Let That Fly, Francis Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and Vision and Theodore Dreiser: Going Beyond Naturalism to mention a few of his many books .on British and American literature. He has to credit his 2000 articles to his credit besides being Editor of Journal (ISSN).

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© 2021 Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee & Dr. Rituparna

Bhattacharjee. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  06/14/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2674-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2673-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021910590

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover Design: Bhaskar Jyoti Deka

Illustration: Dr. Tarali Pathak

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Preface

Special Introduction

My Words

The Helpless Virus

White Hashnahana And Yellow Oleanders Again Bloomed

My Fourteen Days In A Hospital

The Quarantine Centre

Euphoria And Disillusionment

The Masked Youngman

Oleander

Tears Of Joy

She Prayed For Death For Herself

Lockdown Blast

Merits Of Mask

Corona Caliban In Bermuda

Balcony View

Samadrita And His Cat Billu

Lemon Ginger Tea And Hydroxychloroquine

A Truthful Lie

Unlocked Door

Politricks Of Covid Test Kit

Washing Hands

I Missed Her

The Idiot Box

My Hashnahana Bloomed In Her Heart

Damn Care

Olea In Hashnahana Fragrance

The Old Father In Quarantine

Renee Home

Orange Memories

Sacrifice

Hospital Days

Night

Nishali’s Rainy Nights In Shillong

Home Coming

The Flirt

The Immortal Kiss

Rain Of Love In Galle Face Hotel

The Sweetest Story

Two Shortest Stories The Solar Eclipse

Pet Dog Guni And Lockdown

About The Author

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FOREWORD

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Uncertainty, fear, and anguish have been our prevailing feelings since the Coronavirus pandemic has started to spread across the world. Our daily habits and our working life have changed dramatically. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meets are part of our standard vocabulary now, and what once was real has become virtual. Even our relationship with fellow human beings has been altered by current lockdown measures: indeed, the physical distancing imposed to prevent a further spread of the virus, has been erroneously interpreted as social distancing, which is slowly eroding our sense of community. Furthermore, as asymptomatic cases are difficult to detect, each person is now observed with hostility and suspicion, as a potential enemy.

In these testing times, Ratan Bhattacharjee draws out attention to the salvific role of literature, which lies in its capacity to engage the reader, while showing alternative views, perspectives, and solutions to our problems. Hence, his Six Feet Distance is a powerful collection of short-stories which may prove a useful tool to overcome the challenges of the present crisis. Humor, even dark humor, can help us deflate the feeling of disempowerment we are all experiencing. In My Fourteen Days in Hospital, for instance, the protagonist returns home to the astonishment of his family members, who had been mistakenly informed of his death. The humorous description of the oversized pajamas patients are supposed to wear, the constant chatter of the nurses, the unbearable snoring coming from the narrator’s roommate are amusing incidents that provide temporary respite to the reader.

The main character’s return to our nurturing Mother Nature, looking for momentary solace, is the subject of A Truthful Lie, reminiscent of Thoreau’s well-known social experiment on Walden pond, which is actually mentioned in the narrative. The author’s deep and outstanding knowledge of both British and American literature is also evident in many other stories. In Corona Caliban in Bermuda, for instance, references to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner complicate the plot, which explores the feelings of isolation and loneliness we are all sharing nowadays. Shakespeare’s creative genius during lockdown is the subject of Shakespeare in lockdown, which ends the collection, as an invitation to be as creative as possible, notwithstanding our toils and tribulations. Wordsworth’s daffodils are cited in My Fourteen Days in Hospital, as a positive replacement for sad recollections. The artist also devotes some of his most poignant reflections to the animal world. In Pet Dog Guni in Lockdown, a dog becomes as sensitive to the lockdown situation as his owners are, thus highlighting the connection between all living creatures; in Samadrita and His Cat Billu, the support and consolation offered by pets is also underlined.

I wish to conclude this brief foreword with words of gratitude, drawing inspiration from one of the most interesting and thought-provoking stories of the volume, entitled Tears of Joy. In this narrative, the cooking maid of an affluent family surprisingly continues to receive her salary, despite her absence from work; solidarity, commonality, thankfulness for the smaller and bigger blessings in our lives are the gifts Rattan Bhattacharjee bestows on his readers, through his collection. And we, as a large human family, cannot but be inspired by that.

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(Elisabetta Marino)

Professor of English Literature, Faculty of

Humanities, University of Rome, Tor Vergata.

INTRODUCTION

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It gives me much pleasure to write in praise of Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee’s remarkable collection of stories, Six Feet Distance, which is a call to action for India’s masses. The stories in this book are basically an eloquent South Asian response to the Corona Virus lockdown days. While it is energized by a seeming foregrounding of the Indian political scenario generated by the COVID-19 crisis alone, that mise-en-scene also strikingly brings to light far-reaching, long-simmering and well-justified discontents that have marked the course of the twenty-first century in India and worldwide, given the global rise of demagogues and their extremist backdrops. Along with narrating these discontents as they manifest themselves in the lives of women, queer, trans-, working-class, and other dispossessed and displaced populations in several incisive, sensitive and variegated tales, Dr. Bhattacharajee also pertinently draws attention to the plight of animals, those other creatures great and small that we often forget as deserving not only of our compassion but care.

Engaging, compelling, and above all, timely, the stories in this collection chronicling the time of COVID-19 will leave an indelible impression on readers. As the stories demonstrate and refuse being pushed aside, being confined within a state of internalized lockdown that is as economic, emotional, psychological as it is physical due to COVID has brought to the surface of national consciousness and memory that only now, over a mere few past decades, women and trans- communities across classes and cultures have begun transgressing the Lakshman Rekha by walking out of violent homes and taking control over their own lives. In depicting this moment, Dr. Bhattacharjee is measuring paces in his own unique framework with prominent contemporary Indian and diasporic authors such as Arundhati Roy, Megha Majumdar and Amitav Ghosh. This is, needless to point out, no small achievement.

It is fortunate that social and legal support systems have also partially evolved to respond to and in fact, legitimize these transgressions. The writer focuses on the agony of the common person from the viewpoint of a man dwelling in Kolkata. In story after story, there are flashes of humor deftly blended in withthe poignant narration of the precarious lives of the old, women, children and the disabled, to name a few. The stories also graphically describe the plight of migrant laborers who lost their children and members of their family during the draconian and imperturbable lockdown, amounting to nothing less than democide, imposed in the early days of the pandemic in India by the government. Uncovering the travails of the powerless and the luckless like migrants and workers shines the spotlight unflinchingly at the same time on the atrocious corruption and greedof profiteering businessmen and undeterred by human suffering.

The 2020 pandemic has changed our lives and the world in innumerable ways. Some of these experiences will be forgotten as too intolerable; others will be suppressed as too shameful; but the stories in Six Feet Distance will keep readers submerged and engaged in a ludic reverie. It is a highly recommended read as a chronicle of our times.

Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya Writer and Professor English Department, Texas A&M University, USA Author of Love’s Garden, a novel

PREFACE

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In the pandemic that is devastating the world since March 2020, art makes its way and brings light, and in this context it is time to welcome the publication of Six Feet Distance, a thrilling and compelling collection of stories by Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee.

Written in the lockdown period, the stories flow and open up to reflections of enormous human depth, thanks to the gallery of unforgettable characters that inhabit them, showing the committed view of the author.

Ratan Bhattacharjee’s narrative endeavour is a gift to all of us who have felt confusion and disruption due to this situation of global reach but intimate experience. Certainly, the deep human touch of the stories reminds us that we are all in this together, as citizens of a world that will never be the same again.

Dora Sales

Profesora Titular. Documentación aplicada a la traducción Departamento de Traducción Comunicación, Universitat Jaume I Av. Vicent Sos Baynat, s/n 12071 – Castellón

Dora SALES | Senior Lecturer | PhD in Translation Studies | Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana | UJI | Department of Translation and Communication (researchgate.net)

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

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On March 24, 2020, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modiji, called for a complete lockdown of the entire nation for twenty-one days. As we listened to him intently, wondering the implications of this announcement, probably none of us was ready for what was in store for the future. During the first lockdown in India, many of us regarded the sudden WFH as a boon, an unexpected and unlimited holiday. People in employment sectors, such as, education, sales, and so on, for whom WFH was an impossible and unthinkable option ever, proudly told others, I AM WORKING FROM HOME! The acronym WFH gave a posh feeling to our otherwise mundane jobs. Several corporate houses went to the extent of providing monetary support to their employees to buy tables and chairs and make their office space at home. An entire year in the pandemic times, with the second wave of the virus creating a havoc and the news of the third wave reaching us, WFH does not present a rosy picture any more. We are witnessing multiple health issues as a result of sitting at one place for long hours and extended screen time. Well, is that all? WFH, online classes for children, and social distancing come with their own penalties. With the growth in the number of virus infected people, let us also accept the fact that there has been a steep rise in reported cases of mental health problems and resultant deaths too. COVID 19 has affected not only the human body, but also the human psyche. It is indeed an unfamiliar world that the virus has forced us into!

In this traumatic period of human history, literature that has been produced by several creative minds will stand as a testimony of our collective experience across the globe. Ratan Bhattacharjee’s Six Feet Distance: Looking Back to Lockdown Days is one such timely anthology of illuminating and heart-rendering narratives that record how human lives have been radically transformed with the Corona Virus still creating a havoc in our lives. The story Euphoria and Disillusionment, emphasizing on the sudden demand of sanitizers and masks and the resultant shortage, will definitely ring a bell with all readers. In Merits of Mask, the author looks beyond the superficial meaning of ‘masks’ which we are accustomed to these days and questions the veiled nature of people that we find so difficult to understand. The book brings out varied experiences of lockdown and the pandemic. While we are locked up within the confines of the four walls of our home, there are several domestic troubles which we experience. While Lockdown Blast portrays the difficulties of the narrator’s wife to do the household chores all by herself without the support of a domestic help, it also brings out the renewed love and care of the couple in these testing times. Hope is also seen in the form of new friendships; in Samadrita and his cat Billu, for instance, it is heartening to see the little boy moving out of his virtual world and seeking solace in his new friend, the cat Billu.

Ratan Bhattacharjee’s stories are intense and moving; his language, simple and easy to understand, and hence, they strike a deep chord in our hearts. While we are reminded of the fear, terror, sorrows, and loss caused by the pandemic, the narratives also importantly, bring about rays of hope for a better future. I am sure that the book will be received well all over the world. I wish the author the very best.

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(Dr. Payel Dutta Chowdhury)

Professor of Engish and Director,

School of Humanities, Reva University

MY WORDS

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While we are forced to face a crisis in our community life or in our family living it is vital to voice aloud our opinion. As a creative person I felt it imperative to reflect on what was happening around me during the lockdown outside and inside our home. I took notice of the activities of the neighbours who reacted in diverse ways. It channeled my thinking and I was happy that I was not a victim of corona infection nor I was supposed to go to quarantine. For the first lockdown clamped on us all on a sudden almost an atmosphere of curfew prevailed. We were all suddenly isolated from the rest of the world, the collective pain and sadness of witnessing the loss of life and the anger at local officials for what we observed as the mishandling of the crisis. I continuously wrote my ideas and feelings as if I were writing a lockdown diary but it was not fully with an autobiographical point of view. I wanted to be one with the many around me and also with those whom I do not see but get reports about them from the media. I took care of making the narrative vivid with real emotions and a straightforward style although I had a plan to give the narrative a fictional colour so that the lockdown experiences will not be a painful reading of facts that the masked world has witnessed for the first time. I did not mince my words in writing about the accountability regarding the government’s mishandling of the crisis. I took care of keeping record of life in the New Normal to focus on the innumerable post –traumatic consequences that people in India and the neighbouring countries had to reckon with. The faint hope of coming out of the catastrophe disappears with the infection curve becoming larger day by day. The invention of vaccine took a mysterious turn at a point of time and people lost hope of survival. People in Health services had to succumb to death. I wanted to fictionalize the horrible agony and frustration that prevailed My stories are not intended to be a vessel for immortal narratives but it will be like a window view of the total pandemic situation with social commentaries and emotional nuances of daily life under the lockdown. For a creative person like me with a social responsibility what more