1st September 2021
Fear of life can make you drown in such a deep lake of sorrow. I realized that, when a sickness like Covid hits you, everything else that you’ve been hearing, reading or telling others becomes worthless. the fear of losing your life grips you in a place where common sense or positive thoughts or loving words cannot reach.
My biggest fear rushed out from that deep place to float towards Imaad and wrapped around him. the first that when I isolated myself, I could hear his footsteps, his voice, and I felt the pain of not being able to hug him whenever I wanted to. How did I take that privilege of a mother for granted so much?
And when no one else puts your child first like you do, how could you be sure that he will be looked after in the very same way that you would? Who would understand his smallest change, a moment of silence, a meaning in one look? Will anyone ever know what makes him truly scared, what makes him uncomfortable, what makes him upset, the way I do?
Will he feel lost? Lonely? Will he be afraid to face the world? I ask myself all these questions and I don’t know where the answers are.
Another thing that shook me was my sense of hopelessness. I didn’t feel like reading to writing. In total isolation now, I would think that I would use all the time I have to write all those pieces that I have been jotting down. But, no. I haven’t felt like writing a word, until now, almost four days later. I’m yet to open a book and read. There is an utter senselessness, an overwhelming inertia, of nothingness. I don’t want to do anything, speak to no one. I have been ignoring all the calls to my phone, using my cough as an excuse. I have been binging on Netflix and TikTok! My brain refuses anything that calls for it to be an active participant. Is it its way of asking for a break? I feel like everything is on limbo.
There are many ugly buildings when I look out of this window of the room I have to myself. And I wonder, why do people need such big buildings? They just build and build, one tasteless floor atop another, and fill it with more people who don’t seem to have a sense of what they’re doing, or where they’re going. Are we all the, on some kind of a limbo? Senselessly moving with time, waiting for that end where something ought to happen? But we don’t know what that something would be, so we don’t know what to look forward to. Yet, all that we know is that we have to? Who among us has a choice?
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2nd September 2021
The girls have been in touch with me since the day I arrived. They have also been asking me about the food here. So I thought I should write it down. After all, a person is the food she eats, right? Not that I have a choice in what I get here. Anyway, here’s the menu since the night I came in.
31st:
Dinner – pasta, crumb fried chicken, 2 dinner rolls, soup, butter, watalappan
1st:
Breakfast – white bread, parippu, pol sambola, fishcurry, banana
Lunch – rice, fish curry, potato mirisata, vegetable chopsuey, custard
Tea – butter cake
Dinner – string hoppers, potato kirata, pol sambola, chicken curry (I forget what the dessert was. I think it was cream caramel).
2nd:
Breakfast – white bread, 2 sausages, omlette, kanji, sago pudding, jelly
Lunch – looked like some form of a nasi goreng with chicken and a fried egg
Tea – a veg roll
Dinner is yet to come. So far, food has been alright.
I also shifted rooms today. There was something wrong with the power circuit and the power kept going off. Happened once the night I came, and twice yesterday. When it happened again this morning, they changed my room. Perhaps, they don’t have anyone to fix it immediately, or maybe it’s a big job. However, I shifted to the room across the corridor.
My mood went out in a puff. This room has 2 single beds and feels stuffy. There’s a big ugly building on the left corner, which is very depressing. For some time, I felt down. I felt like I had to move out from my own old room. It’s strange, because I have never felt like this even when I had to move houses in which I had lived for years. I think Covid gets to your hormones too.
But I’m okay now. I put the two beds together and brought all my stuff. I also brought some stuff from the other room, like the mug I was using. I don’t know, it felt like it was mine. But I’ve been here only 2 days… sigh…
i went out to the balcony just now. Dusk had set in and the sky, a blue black. I know I complained about the view earlier, but it doesn’t look so bad as night’s cloak wraps itself all around. Some of the windows in some buildings are lit. Like someone said, every window tells its own story.
I have this crazy liking to look through windows at night. Those days, when we used to travel long distances in the night, I loved to watch the houses that passed by. It is a bit of a perverse hobby, but I loved to see what people were up to in their houses. Something made them vulnerable in a way that they didn’t realize themselves. They are comfortable in their homes, settling in after a day of work, like they were giving that last hours of the day to themselves.
Today too, I watched. Some windows had the curtains drawn, some hadn’t. Some lights were on, some weren’t. But, I wonder, each of those windows has a life behind it. Someone doing something. Maybe someone was cooking, maybe someone was watching TV, maybe you were with your family; together, laughing, or each in their own world. Maybe someone was alone; enjoying the solitude or feeling lonely and depressed. But each one of them is living a moment in their lives that will not come back, nor will be repeated, ever. Even if they were doing something routine, would it be the same as what they did yesterday? Are they feeling the same way they did, when they were doing the exact thing yesterday?
I think why I don’t like to do this during the day, look at people or through their windows. Obviously, not wanting to be caught as a pervert. But, apart from that, it doesn’t give the same feeling. Why?
I think, when you put yourself out there to observe people, you also bare yourself out to the open. When you look, you can also be seen. The night, on the contrary, covers it. The night hides you. Maybe that’s why people are more free and relaxed at night; they become more of themselves, because darkness gives you a sense of façade.
And then I look up at the sky, and my heart literally hurts. Who are we and what is our purpose in this world? The sky just covers us all up in its vastness. It’s there, just there, constantly. Yes, it changes, according to time, according to the weather. But its presence is constant. And then there’s us. We don’t even have control of our own lives, not knowing what life has for us the very next day, unable to control what we feel or think, our minds creating and re-creating the world for us. Our existence is not constant.
I’m glad I brought this notebook with me.
I think I spoke a bit too soon about the food. Even though it’s my last choice for dinner, I shall stick to my decision of recording the food.
Dinner – rice, potato thel daala, fish curry, parippu, watalappan.
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3rd September 2021
Breakfast – red rice, parippu, pol sambola, sprats
I’m too depressed to write anything more about it.
Ftofylline & Theophylline – twice a day
Pantocid – twice a day
Montiget & Titalium (?) – once a day
Lunch – rice, kadala curry, bandakka, red seafood curry
Dinner – noodles, chicken curry, mushroom, yoghurt
අර්තාපල්
ඔක්කොම
Showing Ahmed how Imaad is supposed to write his Sinhala.
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4th September 2021
Breakfast – string hoppers, pol sambol, chicken curry, dhal.
It’s raining today. Yesterday was good; I felt active. I did yoga. I started to pray and even did some work on the Icarus translation. But today, I didn’t even feel like getting out of bed. I don’t want to do any work either. I think of how many more days I have to be here. I enjoy the relaxing, not having to do anything, no deadlines to meet, just to do what I feel like. But somehow, it’s not as fun as I thought it would be. I know if I don’t make the best out of it, I will regret it when I get back to the real world. So, I guess I should stop feeling guilty and enjoy it when it lasts.
Lunch – white rice, dhal, green beans, fish, manyokka.
Do you know, when people talk about depression, they talk about good days and bad days? I always wondered how that could be, you know, how can your mods swing like that with no reason. But I think now I know.
One day, you feel chirpy, you want to get things done, you want to channel you inner energy into something positive or creative. That was me yesterday.
And then, the very next day, you wake up and a gloom takes over you, body and mind. It’s like a thick cloud is pushing you down from up there. You don’t feel like doing anything, because your body doesn’t want to, but also because you think what the purpose of it all is.
And to feel like his, when you’re isolated, when there is no distraction, makes the gloom darker. Your thoughts become loud. You realize that you’ve only been having conversations all by yourself. You yearn to hear another person’s voice, simply talking to you, and to hear your own voice talking to another. Not over the phone, but the real, actual voice. And you wish that you could reach out of this bubble of silence. But when even the closest of human interaction comes; a call, a text, you don’t feel like responding. You don’t feel like making that effort, and so you ignore it.
It’s such a dilemma.
Tea – fish patty
I think the food manu has come one whole circle.
Dinner – pasta, chicken, bread rolls, butter, soup, bread pudding.
I hope these are not the only varieties the chefs here have.
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5th September 2021
I am determined to make the best out of the day today. The gloom of yesterday has lifted, partly, but not completely. It’s still hovering over me, ready to descend at the smallest hint of me looking up. But I’m determined not to let it. I know I should, for my own good.
Things I need Ahmed to send;
– Eva
– Vaseline cream
– Dove shampoo and conditioner
– Razor
Breakfast – white bread, pol sambol, potato white curry, fish curry, yoghurt.
Lunch – white rice, chicken curry, ambarella, parippu and some vegetable cooked – I’m not sure what it was, caramel pudding.
Tea – butter cake
Dinner – white rice, parippu, fish, beetroot, bandakka.
I’ve had too much of rice today. I hope tomorrow’s breakfast would not be rice.
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6th September 2021
Breakfast – red rice, parippu, boiled egg, yoghurt.
Lunch – yellow rice, chicken, parippu, cutlet, seeni sambol.
Tea – pancake!
Dinner – was a delight! Soup, bread rolls, sausages, bled vegetables, hash, chocolate caramel pudding!
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7th September 2021
Breakfast – fish bun, cheese sandwich, fish patty, chinese roll, banana.
Lunch – trying to be biriyani rice, fried chicken, cutlet, boiled egg, ash plantain, maasi sambol, achcharu, bread pudding.
Tea – chocolate puff biscuit.
Dinner – pasta, grilled chicken, bread rolls, butter, soup, watalappan.
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8th September 2021
Lunch – white rice, chop suey, fish, chilli paste, chocolate caramel.
Tea – butter cake.
They said I can go home tomorrow. It got me thinking. Despite it being a quarantine, and being confined to a room, I enjoyed living alone. The fact that I could do anything that I want, at any time I wanted to, without having to be answerable, has been exhilarating. And I imagine, put it into the context of a normal life, where I could go out… how could that have been? I feel I would have understood myself, found myself much sooner, if I had lived alone in my 20s. I had the chance when I took up living in the hostel in my final year, but I think I was still too within my shell, or not confident enough to take up that freedom completely.
I think every person should live alone in their early adult years. It will help them develop their personality much more sooner and better. The Lankan way of parenting, where you look after them no matter how old they are, is actually detrimental. You can be there to support them when they need you, be the shoulder to cry on and all, but not force your every belief and emotions on them. I hope I can do this to Imaad, where he will feel free to make his own decisions, to express himself without the fear of thinking “What will they say?”
I’ve forgotten to write down the breakfast.
Breakfast – white bread, parippu, fish curry, pol sambol, yoghurt.
Dinner – string hoppers, potato curry, chicken curry, pol sambol, fudge.
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9th September 2021
Today will be my last day at the centre. It has been a soul searching 10 days. I’m still confused about everything that went through my head in the past days, but these few days have also put a lot of things into perspective.
The food hasn’t disappointed me on my last day.
Breakfast – white bread, omlette, sausages, butter, fudge, chicken kanji, yoghurt.
Lunch – mongolian rice, grilled chicken, fried eggs, fudge.
Tea – chinese rolls.
I’ve packed up. The vehicle will be here in 10 minutes. I’m welling up and I feel like I want to cry. I have never cried when I left any of the houses that I used to live in. I was too small when we left Laxana Villa, our ancestral home. And when we permanently left Warakamura, where we had lived for abt 20 years, I only cried because I had to leave Lumpy, my dog. The house in Dematagoda, despite being special because Imaad was born when we lived there, didn’t hold any emotional value. I was waiting to get out of there. I think I was most upset when we left the Samudrasanna house, but the prospect of shifting to a bigger space with a garden was more important.
But today, as I folded my bedsheet, zipped my bag close and checked the bathroom for the final time for anything that was left back, I feel like I’m leaving something of myself in this most strangest of places.
These 10 days would never be repeated. Maybe they were 10 days of my life that I missed when I was growing up.
Musings 