Our Brush With Corona

Chapter IX

The road to recovery had been smooth for all of us till the 3rd of December, which was early days of my illness, but the ninth day since my parents had tested positive. In the evening, my mother, our sprightly Head of State, had some sort of a coughing bout and on checking her oxygen level we found her oxygen level touching 90. This caused a lot of anxiety to both my father and me and we had decided to talk with the guards outside and arrange for her shifting to the hospital. But my mother was adamant in not going. She persuaded, begged and cajoled. On our persisting she gave her word that if her oxygen level did not improve or her cough continued through the night, she would shift to the hospital the first thing in the morning.

I was very unsure of allowing her to stay at home, but my father had the confidence. His confidence was not misplaced. Came the morning and my mother was back in her elements. No signs of cough and a vastly improved oxygen reading. There are numerous ups and downs in your disposition when you suffer from COVID and perhaps this was one such. I could feel we were playing with fire by keeping my mother at home but sometimes you must heed the words of the elderly. Foisting our decision on them may lead to undesirable consequences especially if it is diametrically opposite to their views.

It is not just a matter of coincidence as to how my mother pulled off her recovery in such a short time. Seeing that her admission to the hospital was now a Hobson's choice, she drastically resorted to some breathing control yoga exercises and steam inhalations, which she was neglecting to do earlier and recovered in quick time.

She was back in command in the morning and took her place in the kitchen. Time and again I used to ask her to take rest and not take too much stress in making food. But on such occasions my father would call me aside and ask me to let her do whatever she wanted as he was sure that full time involvement in the domestic chores, would keep my mother's mind occupied with that work and keep it away from her illness.

My mother is one of the types who abound with energy. Even in normal times, she would be the first to answer the doorbell or a ringing phone. Bubbly as a child, her energy is infectious. And there is some temper too, especially if she is not allowed to have her way as it came to the fore one day.

There are these garbage vans engaged by the municipal bodies in Delhi to collect garbage in colonies. They come at fixed times in various colonies and playing a very catchy and hummable song on a loudspeaker, they collect the garbage by halting at pre-decided points in colonies, where people come and dump their garbage in the van in plastic bags. The garbage from a house having a COVID patient is collected separately in different bags after disinfecting them completely.

I was taking care of this duty of garbage disposal. One day just when the garbage van stopped at the junction near my house, I was in the washroom and so out of the scene of action. I could hear my mother lifting the garbage bag and then move out of the door towards the van, and in the process crossing into an area which a COVID patient was not entitled to. There was a new lady guard posted and she made my mother aware of her infringement in no uncertain measure, calling her irresponsible in the process. Of course, she was well within her rights to do so. But though my mother was wearing a mask and gloves as we always did when we put even one step outside the door, she should have waited for the assigned man with a separate bag to come to the door.

Days of captivity had taken its toll and the harsh words of the young lady added salt to injury. My mother is never the one to take a step backwards. From the washroom, where I was rendered temporarily hors de combat, I could hear the verbal free for all between the two warring parties, my visibly agitated mother inside the house at the front door and the young lady guard outside. I had a foreboding about the ramifications of this misadventure, so I rushed to the entrance as did my father. The verbal exchange with increased sound bytes had at least added some action to the mundane lives of the neighbours, living under the shadow of COVID, for the last few days.