Quarantine – A word that suddenly started flashing around me since 5th March,20 when I went out for my work for the very last time. It was the usual day at the office , but I was waiting to leave for my home as the day progressed. I am usually a very fit ( healthy :-)) as per me but I hate the feeling to be sick as like everyone does.
I pulled myself somehow on the way back home after finishing my day, with a feeling that something is not right.
I was down with a fever from the next morning with a severe headache. More than the feeling of falling sick, fear and panic were driving me insane.
The virus had just reached the other side of the country, is it possible that it managed to catch me? No… Not possible. But then how can I forget that I used public transport all these days. So when my ‘ifs’ and ‘but’s are debating with each other, I decided to inform my work and go in self-quarantine!
The next 2-3 days were worse. I juggled between work, my bad health, and long calls that I made to my GP to ask that I needed to do the ‘test’ as I have the symptoms. When I didn’t succeed in it, I had no other options other than dealing it on my own.
Luckily the fever went down after the 5th day which made me realize that it was just due to the seasonal change, fear, and lot of stress that I had been going through. Though I knew that stress causes my body to gain a bit of temperature but when it rises, it implies that I have a feeling of failure that my inner-self is unable to cope up with and it requires attention!
By the time I recovered (not fully), the country declared lockdown as the death toll started increasing. My apartment is just opposite of a shopping mall and my eyes are always used to with seeing hundreds of people going in and out from it. Suddenly, there is nobody I could see! I must say it was a strange feeling altogether.
I have been staying in the Netherlands for the last 3 years. It’s the 3rd house here since I landed and 15th throughout my life. I spent my childhood in a 15-meter square rented house, but the most remembered and special thing about that was the unlimited unbounded uncovered sky was part of it and used to be with me until I completed my study and left for my work to another city. So the equation of my peace and perfect home was and always will be, the sky should be seen uncovered from every window and from my bed until dusk-n-dawn.
So when this pandemic hit so hard and left me blinded with the turbulence of emotions and fear, I needed to look up and around in search of my own place, the very old, but ‘my limited sky’.
This change was not easy. It’s not for anyone either. Getting up every morning by seeing the death count and comparing with the places where it stopped, juggling between the work and household stuff, making sure everything is safe for the family back at India and a feeling of sad, helplessness, distress about those who are in need of food and shelter and currently trapped in a place other than their home, made my ‘Psychogenic fever’ to go up sometimes.
As I have never thought I will be locked in the home for more than 70 days, left to see my ‘limited sky’, I thought to document it. So here it is.
And. I am also counting days, like you all, to see my unlimited sky. Hope to see it soon.
From my Living room.
About Piyali Haldar
I am from ‘Calcutta’ ,currently staying in Amsterdam, Netherlands for my work since last 3 years. I miss photographing my city badly. I like to shoot people and places and like to create a rhythm that my audience can feel it.
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Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted to Piyali Haldar. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.
