Hot and alone in summer during coronavirus

The need for physical contact is anyway that much less in summer.
As everyone tries to make some meaning out of why this virus and why now, perhaps it is just for that lesson: to value being able to be close.
As everyone tries to make some meaning out of why this virus and why now, perhaps it is just for that lesson: to value being able to be close.

BENGALURU: The summer is hot and miserable usually right across the country, with the possible exception of the hills and some beach-side or forested pockets here and there, and with all the sweat and heat, hardly anybody really wants to be in much of a physical proximity with anybody else. In the hot plains across the country, people try and keep some air cooling on, or to at least huddle under giant shaded trees and do nothing more than breathe and hydrate themselves.

The need for physical contact is anyway that much less in summer. Our songs are about the cool, wet monsoon clouds, and we celebrate the coming of the dark skies, unlike the music from gloomy English countrysides that keep looking for silver linings in their clouds and the sun breaking through the clouds  -–they go mad at the sight of the sun, packing their parks in unclothed abandon, trying to get as much sun on their skin as possible, while we here for the most part, want to see if we could even peel away our skin and be nothing at all.

This summer seems lost to COVID-19. The physical distancing we would anyway maintain for much of the summer is now accentuated by the virus and the lockdown enforced to prevent it from spreading. Across the country, most of us are locked in, to some degree or another, and recognise that this summer is unlike any other before this year.

There is none of the usual summertime things – nobody is stopping by the street-side stalls selling lemon sodas, and there are none around in any case. Nobody is out there cutting up giant jackfruits that pull you in from a kilometre away, nobody is out there with their pani puri carts. Not even the ubiquitous street corner tender coconut is around, except just outside the general hospitals – the streets are silent, even with the relaxations around in the traffic. People are online a lot more, and there is a lot of virtual dating -- but nothing in real life. No coffee dates, no romantic dinners. No hugs. No direct physical contact. Nothing unless you are already cohabiting with someone.

There is a certain hunger that we feel in our very souls for contact, physical or otherwise, and having to stay away from people this much is a pain that we had not really prepared for – not even for the most touch-repulsed people. If you are not lucky enough to have someone living with you at this time who you can touch, caress, hug, cuddle and more, you might be recognising how much it means to have that in your life. And maybe when you do get that someone again in your life, you would be that much more grateful and not take it for granted. 

As everyone tries to make some meaning out of why this virus and why now, perhaps it is just for that lesson: to value being able to be close.

(The writer is a counsellor with Innersight)

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