Awoke with a fever, but contrary to my usual hypochondria, didn’t believe it was the virus. Vaguely remembered that I’d been fever dreaming of chicken curry. In the dream I was surrounded by a group of friends, can’t remember who, but they all seemed to be enjoying a batch of my aunt’s chicken curry, made famous by me in an interview of national importance published in ET-Panache or some such. I, as is usual, or at least was before the lockdown, was the only vegan in the group. Which meant I was relegated to sneakily ‘tasting’ a little every now and then from the others’ plates. Whoever these friends were, it seemed they were used to my fake vegan-ness, because even though me tasting the same thing from everyone’s plate did not go un-noticed by them, they chose to politely ignore this behavior.
At some other point in the dream, I seemed to be sitting alone in one part of the room, when someone came up to me. They gave me a knowing look, and quickly scooped a portion of the chicken curry onto my plate, before disappearing back to wherever everyone else was. Strangely, I can’t remember who this person giving me the ‘knowing look’ was, even though I remember the old school wooden furniture well enough to draw a picture of it. Based purely on the style of the move though, getting me my meat fix without calling out my bullshit publicly, I would hazard that it was Munaf. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve returned to the car from a meeting, and as soon as I settle in, Munaf picks up a little something and holds it out in my direction. It’s usually a chicken sandwich, or shawarma, or some other such everyday delicacy. Each time my first reaction is mild outrage, and my eyes widen as I veer to the verge of giving Munaf a harsh piece of my mind. Then a second passes, and that delicious something is still hovering inches from my nose, and I feel my shoulders slump, as I defeatedly accept the offer. No words exchanged, just an unspoken understanding. Maybe a mumbled “thanks Munaf” at most, after the first heavenly bite. So yeah, seems like the guy in the dream might have been Munaf, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.
Thinking of the dream made me smile as I sat up in bed, because if there’s one thing the lockdown had done, it had proven to me that I can be vegan. That’s right, 26 days, straight up, full vegan……except ghee, yeah I’m still doing ghee. The cynics will say, of course, that it won’t last, that Munaf and I will be back at it the moment the world restarts. Alright naysayer, far be it for me to insist on you believing in my resolve. But what we can agree has been truly, undeniably proven, is that I can be vegan for 26 days at a stretch if human society is in the throes of a pandemic, except for ghee of course. But you know what, why don’t we meet in about six months and then we’ll really talk. And if it turns out you’re right and I’ve completely fallen off the wagon by then, I may have to reschedule last minute because of a work thing that may come up.
The smiling made my face hurt though, a burning sensation at the top of these chubby cheeks. I touched my face in brazen violation of contemporary medical advice, found that it felt larger than usual and that the skin seemed to be stretching rather tight over that largesse. Swollen face, mild fever, what was up? Before a mirror could confirm anything, however, I caught sight of the window across from my bed, and froze. There was nothing outside the window! No artificial lake, no skyscrapers, no sheesha restaurant languishing in the loneliness of the day. Just white, like in a movie, once the lead character has died and gone to heaven, where a bearded old man gives them a wisely worded choice which we know will end with them coming back to life. Hold on, maybe this was also a dream! One of those dreams where you were dreaming in your dream and so when you wake up you’re still in a dream. There was only one way to find out – by trying to get out of bed and walking into the hall. If there’s one thing I know about my dreams, it is that even though I can achieve all kinds of crazy stuff in there (my two most recurrent dreams involve driving a car from the back seat and jumping down unscathed from a multi-storey building), I can never up and walk in a normal way from point A to point B, try as I may. Based on that, if this was a dream I could jump into my hall from a tall building, drive a car there while sitting in the back seat, even apparate there by sheer force of wanting to, but there was no way I’d be able to just get up and walk there.
So I tried getting out of bed, and while the move was overall a success, I was immediately dizzy. Mild fever, swollen face, and dizziness – either this was a pretty specific dream or I was coming down with something. Nothing I’d read listed dizziness as a symptom of Covid-19 though, so whatever.
I made it to the hall and then stepped onto the balcony to investigate the missing view. After the rolling fog outside slapped my swollen visage, I was quite convinced that this was really not a dream. I’d read on my online driving tutorial that the city experiences thick morning fog at the beginning of summer, but I’d never actually woken up early enough to see it in these 3 years. That I’d managed to catch it at 7 am on a day I had absolutely nowhere to be struck me as pretty hilarious.
The fog lost its charm after the customary Instagram story and “dude is this happening in your area as well?” messages. (It wasn’t, very local that fog). And so it was now just me and the day, for the 27th time in a row. Cook three meals, be on about 30 calls to keep whatever little work is still possible going, check worldometer a few times, yoga at 8 pm, play some pandemic based PS4 games ironically and pass out when it feels like its getting late. Not the worst, to be honest, and it’s particularly easy to be thankful for a well supplied and so far uninfected 980 square feet to myself at a time like this. Still, would have been nice to have someone around – a sweetheart, or a friend, or a pet. Family would have been nice too, though if history really repeats itself we would have driven each other up the wall exactly 52 times in these 26 days. Fascinating philosophical question – aside from considerations of virus transmission, would you be locked up with family and driven up the wall regularly, or would you rather be locked up entirely on your own?
Mull on that, I have Zoom calls and culinary skill enhancements to get to.
