Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
Lockdown Lessons
Being cooped up at home leaves you plenty of time for self-reflection
Ithink we are all agreed that this lockdown has been the most challenging time of our lives – no matter what our circumstances. Of course, it is much worse for those who don’t have a home they can isolate in; those who don’t have the luxury of space to socially distance; those who have lost their sources of income and don’t know where their next meal is coming from; and most tragically, those who are walking thousands of kilometers to make their way back to their villages, with all their possessions on their backs.
But even though it is imperative that we check our privilege when we start whining about how bored and irritated we are being stuck at home, there is no denying that after more than six weeks of the lockdown, everyone is going a bit stir crazy.
I must confess that when it all began, I was sure I would be okay with being confined to my house for weeks on end. How hard could it be to stay at home for a few weeks, I asked myself. After all, I have been working out of home for years now, and I am quite used to the being stuck indoors, with just my immediate household to provide me company. So, with a well-stocked kitchen, shelves full of books that I had been meaning to read, and stretches of quiet time in which I could finish the novel I was writing (the sequel to Race Course Road), the lockdown should present no great challenge for me.
Well, six weeks into the lockdown, I have to admit that this enforced isolation is finally getting to me. I do my best to stay in touch with family and friends. In fact, I have never made as many video calls as I do now. I am more active on my Whatsapp groups than ever before.
I’ve even done Insta lives to try and stay connected with the outside world. And I am engaging much more on Twitter than I would normally do.
Yet, somehow, that’s not enough. And that has come as a revelation to me.
I have never considered myself to be a particularly social person. Given a choice between going out to a party and sitting at home and reading a good book, I will always choose the latter. My idea of hell is having to make small talk with strangers at formal dinner parties. And I find it hard to make new friends, being quite content with the small, tight group of old pals who have sustained me through the years.
But even for someone who self-identifies as a loner, the lack of human contact at this time has had a peculiarly dispiriting effect. I have found myself dreaming of having a restaurant meal with my girlfriends (no, getting on Zoom while eating our solitary meals at home does not even come close). I make elaborate plans of getting all my family together once the restrictions are lifted. In fact, I am even looking forward to negotiating crowded airports – which I have always loathed – when we are finally allowed to travel.
So, I guess it turns out that I am a social being after all!
But that’s not the only thing I have learnt about myself in this period. I have also realised that I need to better appreciate the people who make up my world. And by that I don’t just mean my household help, though it goes without saying that they have my eternal thanks. I mean those people on the fringes of my life, whose contribution I have tended to take for granted.
For instance, I certainly appreciated my colourist a lot more when, a few weeks into the lockdown, I turned my attention to my greying roots and reached for a home-dye kit. I will spare you the details of what followed but suffice it to say that the results were not pretty. If any salon had done that to me, I would have demanded my money back. But given that this was selfinflicted, all I could do was try not to wince every time I looked at myself in the mirror. And give thanks for the man who would soon be asked to launch a rescue mission.
I felt much the same way when I tried to recreate some of my favourite dishes in my own kitchen. As I peeled and chopped and sliced, and then stood sweating over the stove for hours on end, I suddenly appreciated the effort that had gone into all those restaurant meals I had taken for granted all this time. Never again will I dig into a biryani or tuck into bedmi aloo without giving thanks to the many hands that have created that magic on my plate.
If the lockdown has taught me anything, it is this. It is people that make our world go round. Not just the ones whom you count among family and friends. Not just the ones you love to distraction and would gladly take a bullet for. Not just the ones who love and cherish you.
It is also the ones whom you don’t see or value as you rush through the day. The ones who remain invisible, but bring tangible value to your life. The ones who toil silently so that you don’t have to. The ones you take for granted.
We really should appreciate them all. Lockdown or no lockdown.
If the lockdown has taught me anything, it’s that it is people that make the world go round
Spectator appears every fortnight
Driving in the fast lane or any lane is just not possible during the lockdown and even after restrictions are lifted, it will take a while for borders to completely open up before adventurous drivers can gallop into the horizon in their SUVS. For now, the only lane you can cruise down is memory lane, reminiscing about your best moments behind the wheel. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing sitting at home.
Rummaging through my hard disk and a mountain of film, I’ve unearthed my most epic drives and picked those that were truly unforgettable.
SILK ROUTE IN CENTRAL ASIA (1994)
The independent Central Asian countries that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 were still steeped in the Soviet era and hadn’t quite opened up to the outside world when we drove through them in 1994. Uzbekistan’s fabled towns Bukhara and Samarkand, with donkey carts as staple transport, felt stuck in time and the dazzling blue-tiled architecture showed off this region’s glorious past. I had wangled a seat on this expedition led by Major H.P.S Ahluwalia, a military hero who climbed Mt Everest before being shot in the spine during the 1965 Indo-pak war. His bullet injury left him paralysed waist down and confined to a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop the gritty Ahluwalia from leading this 14,000 km expedition. It had taken Ahluwalia six years to get permission from China to allow us to cross into the sensitive Xinjiang region and our caravan of Mahindra Armadas were the first Indian cars to have set a wheel in this remote part of the world.
Driving eastwards through the dreaded Taklamakan desert and returning to India across Tibet and via a detour to the base camp of Mt Everest at a time when few foreigners were allowed in this part of China, made this a truly pioneering expedition that will be hard to top.
To see homegrown Safaris thundering down Pakistani highways at the SAARC Rally in 2007 was a proud moment
KARGIL TO KANYAKUMARI (2001)
The concept was simple; drive to the two extremes of India in a pair of cars that sit at the two extremes of the Indian market. And so the K2K drive was flagged off from Kargil in a Maruti 800 and the uber-expensive Mercedes E240. Fourteen days and 4,300 km later both cars stood at the tip of the sub-continent in front of Kanyakumari’s Vivekananda temple, none the worse for wear. The legacy of this drive lives on in the ‘K2K’ name we originally coined. It’s now commonly used by others doing a similar drive from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
SAARC RALLY (2007)
There will never be another road trip like the 2007 SAARC Rally across the SAARC countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the highlight of which was crossing into Pakistan at the Wagah border in a convoy of 30 Tata Safaris.
To see our homegrown Safaris thundering down Pakistani highways was a proud moment as this was possibly the first and only time a convoy of Indian cars was allowed into Pakistan. This rally had the blessings of the respective governments and took place at a time when the perpetually fragile Indo-pak relations were possibly at their best. A year later we had 26/11 and relations fell south. To drive across the Wagah border all the way to Islamabad in an Indian registered car is unthinkable today.
LAMBORGHINI IN ICY INNER MONGOLIA (2012)
Inner Mongolia. Lamborghini. A frozen lake. Each exotic enough on its own, so when you combine all three, they promise to serve up a truly bucket list experience. Inner Mongolia is actually a remote corner of China where I once flew to drive a Lamborghini Gallardo on a frozen lake. Driving a modern day supercar on ice in this Dr Zhivago-like wilderness where elk look at you quizzically was simply an out-of-this-world surreal experience. On slippery ice, I was happily sliding and pirouetting the Gallardo at pedestrian speeds, without a care in the world. The
only thing I had to worry about was the -20 degree cold.