Unreal!

These last few weeks have been dreamlike. As though I am inhabiting someone else’s life. We are in the middle of a war!! It is as unreal as saying, ‘we are in the middle of a global pandemic,’ or saying, ‘our only child died.’ These are three unreal things that have happened and are happening to me in the last five to six years.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Boats Carrying Out Anchors to the Dutch Men of War, c. 1804,

In my family, they had this saying in Malayalam which literally means, if something bad happens more than once, then watch out, because it will surely happen one more time. Cheery, optimistic outlook it is not, but it did govern life. If we as children tripped and fell once, it is okay. But if it is followed up by a pot of curry spilling on someone’s mundu or someone else falling down or falling ill, then everyone would wait for the third bad thing to happen. Once, the third incident happened – again, it could be anything from a tree falling to a child falling to worse, death in the family, everyone would sagely nod, sigh that the three bad things are done with and continue with life.

I am hoping that the three bad things are done with for me. My capacity to absorb shock is quite high, but I think my system needs a break. But on a day-to-day basis, life has been treating me well. Sure, there is a war going on. But from my particular perch, it feels a stretch to call it that. War is what has happened to people in places like Palestine, Ukraine, and now Iran, to name a few. Out here, life continues as before for most people. Folks continue to either go to work or WFH or opt for a hybrid solution. Exams have been affected, but online school continues. Traffic has reduced. There is a mild sense of stress buzzing through the collective consciousness, but not enough to hamper anyone’s lifestyle. Almost like early Covid days!

I wake up, get on with the housework, do my meditation and stretches, write a bit, pretend to write a lot, lose myself in the fabulous world created by Elena Ferrante, work on my clinical hypnotherapy case study submissions, eat, cook, drink lots of tea, meet our close friends on weekends, walk. A couple of times a day this salubrious rhythm is interrupted by the alert – get into a building it says. Avoid being outside to avoid debris from an interception. Sometime later, we will get an all-clear message. Continue with your day but exercise caution. Between the alert and the all-clear messages, the daily rhythm of life is interrupted by the deep booms or thuds of interceptions. Sometimes we can hear them loud and clear, at other times, I hear them in the depths of my brain. It makes me wonder if I have imagined it, but then the WhatsApp groups come alive – did you hear that, so many continuous booms, my house shook, I saw it…

The first few days, it was mildly disturbing. Now I have got used to it. This state of calm is rooted in the fact that we are safe and as of now not impacted by the war. Of course, a state of zen is not everyone’s experience. Families with young children are struggling to explain to their kids, why the safe haven of UAE is suddenly a battle ground. People with the tendency towards anxiety have been hard hit. People with children, whatever their age be, are worried about the future. Some or many have left for safer shores until things settle down. The other day we read about people who have abandoned their pets in their rush to leave the country.

And then there is Suresh and I.

We are not frightened or worried. For both of us, death is not to be feared. What we fear is the inconvenience of war – being uprooted or losing our most precious possession – Sakshi’s things. My greatest concern is about evacuation. We have our ‘grab bags’ ready in case we have to evacuate. But we will have to leave behind the bulk of Sakshi’s things that we still have with us. I am willing to leave my precious books behind, but I balk at the thought of leaving her clothes, her notebooks, her things behind. I’d much rather lie in bed and risk the missile or the debris.

Two days ago, we had a truly quiet day – no alerts, no thuds or booms. It unsettled us. It felt like the lull before the storm. We were with friends and we joked about it. But there was no mistaking the quiet damage this surreal war has already wreaked on even the grittiest of us. Quiet days are now unsettling. The alerts and the booms are the new normal.

I do my best to ignore the war. I can’t control it in any which way, so I turn my attention towards what I can control. Like my plants – most of them are flowering beautifully! Do they like drone debris dust! But, despite my best efforts, the war doesn’t stay completely ignored. I keep thinking about the parents of those 165 or 168 kids who had gone to school one day, and then never returned. I think about the woman who lost 12 relatives in one night. She listed them out to the reporter in a flat, emotionless voice. I fear the day when the numbness will leave her and grief in all its ferocity will assail her. I wonder if the families of those kids have things of their children to hold on to or if all of that has been destroyed by shells falling on their homes.

Finally, every war ends the same way – with mothers mourning their dead children – students, soldiers, or just that hapless driver who was parked in the wrong spot where the interception debris fell. Mankind, it seems has always been at war. Even when there is no war.