Work never stops, even during a lockdown

Chronically busy people are busy all the time, any time: that’s why their busyness is a chronic condition, like rheumatism or indigestion. I’ve been diagnosed with this malady in my childhood, before the word ‘workaholic’ was invented. I’ve never known a moment of idleness; I’ve always been mystified by people saying they were “bored”, since I had no personal experience of boredom. All my life, there has always been more that I wanted to do than I had time for.

Which is why there was some curiosity among family, staff and friends when the lockdown was announced. Opinion seemed broadly divided into two camps: those who said “Shashi can finally find time for all the things he’s kept pending”, and a sceptical minority who murmured, “maybe, Shashi will finally learn to relax.”

For someone who had been travelling insanely—13 different cities between January 3 and the opening of the Indian parliament on February 1, hurtling to the constituency every weekend after a full schedule in the national capital, and making speeches, attending events, and meeting importunate visitors during the hours I was out of the House during the session, lockdown meant a life without any of the three main things that had kept me busy thus far—meetings, events and travel. Surely, this would help me ease up on my busy-ness?

Within a day or two, it became apparent this would not be the case. Immediately, a huge amount of Covid-related work, especially relating to the constituency, arose. And then came what family referred to as the “typically Shashi Tharoor” invitations, for video conferences and interviews on the virus, to preparing and delivering a series of five hour-long lectures for the online education portal Unacademy, and speaking in a large number of ‘webinars’ addressing varied audiences on various subjects, from my books to my life to the possible future shape of the post-Covid world. These have averaged two a day throughout the lockdown, sometimes more, occasionally less.

And Covid continued to intrude on the rest of my time, since I inevitably spent hours studying the policy questions, reading about the experiences of other countries, or speaking to, and issuing letters to, ministers on those issues that affected my constituents.

The net result of all my lockdown activity (as I write this during the third phase of lockdown in India) is that it’s not a case of ‘all work and no play’, even if this sounds like the schedule of a ‘dull boy’: I am working 16-17 hour days, of which 8-10 hours go on Covid-related and constituency-connected work (including social media posts!), 3-4 hours on video conferences/ webinars, Zoom meetings, 1.5 on exercise, 2-3 on meal times and family, and the remainder, whenever possible, on writing. I took the opportunity to conclude work on Tharoorosaurus for Penguin, a light, illustrated collection of largely under-used words, from ‘agathokakological’ to ‘zugzwang’ (the title combines my name with ‘tyrannosaurus’, since so many are terrified of difficult words, and ‘thesaurus’, since people want to be able to look them up). And then I embarked, and have made some progress, on a considerably more ‘serious’ book on nationalism, for my regular publisher, David Davidar of Aleph.

There have been memorable incidents almost every day. My cook’s wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl on April 14, the day we Malayalis mark as the auspicious occasion of Vishu, and a rare Vishu I was able to spend with family. Mother’s Day was marked in my mother’s company, which would not have happened but for the lockdown.

There were heart-warming moments too: the seriously ill woman I was able to get a private room for at a hospital, the salaried patient whose savings had all been eaten up by treatment but for whose family I was able to negotiate a modest discount, the stranded travellers I was able to win priority for from a beleaguered government. (Fulsome tribute is due to Foreign Minister Jaishankar and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, both old friends from their diplomatic days, who have been models of responsiveness and helpfulness amid their impossible schedules.)

I am working 16-17 hour days, of which 8-10 hours go on Covid-related and constituency-connected work, 3-4 hours on video conferences, 1.5 on exercise, 2-3 on meal times.