I call my grandma, Aji; She is incredible.
She lives in Mumbai by herself; my grandfather passed away many years ago. She is 80 years old, but a very active person. She teaches sociology in colleges, she is a member of two large social clubs that she visits almost every day. She exercises, travels time to time to Singapore and Delhi to see her children and grandchildren. She has many friends, some of whom are ex-students. She also has family in the city.
Her busy routine came crashing to a halt in 2020.
She was supposed to visit us in March of that year, but a once in a lifetime pandemic shut the world down, and made it impossible for her to travel to Singapore to see us or to Delhi to see her son (my uncle). She was also not able to go to the college to teach or to her clubs for evening walks. There were lots of fear about the elderly facing life threatening illness from Covid.
My grandma is a tough lady, and at that time it wasn’t clear if she was struggling, but a few years later, one day when I was with her, she told me how hard it was at that time.
Aji suffered from depression during the lockdown. She was very lonely. She was worried she wouldn’t see her family again. Lack of activity and the uncertainty about the future made her very sad. She didn’t quite understand what was happening to her world. She wondered if people near and dear to her would die; she worried about her own health too.
She coped as best as she could. We did family zoom calls to share our lockdown experiences, but what we didn’t realise at that time was that the calls actually intensified her loneliness. She told me that during the calls, she would see a bunch of us on one screen, and another family group on another screen. But there was no one but her on her screen.
During the calls, she smiled at us and told us everything was fine, and not to worry about her. But inside, she was feeling so alone.
It has been a few years since the pandemic, and we have moved on, She is back to her usual, feisty self. Her routine of daily club visits, seeing family and friends, attending social events, and teaching is restored. If you met her today, you’d never think she went through depression a few years ago. I am so grateful and happy that she is back to her old self, and that she could celebrate her 80th with all of us, I hope she will never have to experience Covid depression again.