Social distancing? Hey, what does it mean?

Good books, bad reports – reflective reports written in execrable English by some 30 university teachers – and, of course, the coronavirus lockdown helped me stay indoors for four days. Without good food, this would have been impossible.

But food supplies – greengroceries, in particular – were running out, and there was a demand for replenishment yesterday. So I ventured out.

That was the first instance of my breaching the much-touted code of conduct for social distancing (SD). Not quite a breach, in fact. Hadn’t Jagan Anna sanctioned your compromising your safety a bit for the sake of creature comforts from 6 am to 1 pm? Come to think of it, I decided to go out primarily because I was consumed by curiosity: for the first time in my three-score-and-four I was going to witness a working model of social distancing.

I was excited, and this put a spring in my step. As I walked down the stairs, I slowed my steps because I was greeted by gales of laughter. A few spirited old men some of whom, for all I knew, might be harbouring milder versions of COVID-19, were having a ball. Why allow a weekend to pass without some fun? If the worst comes to the worst, heck, die the death of Dylan Thomas. But never “go gentle” into that good night! Whatever, it was not a good SD model. Far from being SD, it was SC – social converging!

There was no SD in my street or the next. Neither was it to be seen on the service road either. I was now at the greengrocer’s – a pushcart stocked with lots of fresh vegetables in front of the Novotel. It was a hub of commercial activity with the buyers literally rubbing shoulders with one another. Where the flyover descended and met Ring Road, a large group of men were exercising on the road, perhaps after an undisturbed walk on the flyover itself. The atmosphere was one of joie de vivre. What a nice social gathering! I now turned my gaze in the direction of a young plus-size woman, dressed in a white smock and black leggings. Her presence was considerable, not her physical bulk, mind you, but the quick pace she was maintaining in spite of it. Her tired and bedraggled father – or husband, I’m not sure – who was jogging to keep up with her was a poor sight.

Now a passer-by, a middle-aged chappie with a lorry-driver look, stopped by the cart. He pulled his bandanna down, took out a cigarette from his pocket and licked it, and I took a cautious SD step back. ‘Sir,’ grinned the man, amused by the look of disgust on my face, ‘the gaali (wind) is blowing in the opposite direction.’ The stub of cigarette jutting from his lips glowed like a malevolent virus. He kept at the task squinting his eyes against the smoke, and, when the cigarette could no longer be used, he stubbed out the butt, coughed violently, spat out the phlegm, watched it with satisfaction for a moment and moved off as though he had stopped at the greengrocer’s only to upset me.

‘How much?’ I asked the vendor, a burly woman who reminded me of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.

‘Two twenty,’ she said.

‘Two hundred and twenty rupees! Before the lockdown ends, you will be rich enough to buy the Novotel,’ I said handing her the money.

‘Why would I need the Novotel, Ayyagaru?’ she said with a coy smile which showed through her mask, a playful tilt of her head and a quick spin of the sari around herself.

In front of us the Novotel wore a deserted look not least because of SD.

#COVID19Stories