New Delhi: On May 16, two policemen and a person in civil clothing came outside our house and started sealing the main door with a plastic tape.
It read: “Do Not Cross the Line”.
My father had tested positive for COVID-19 and was advised to home quarantine for the next 14 days.
As soon as my father had started showing serious symptoms of COVID-19, we had contacted private labs to get our tests done. However, the very first lab we called refused to do the tests, saying that ICMR is working on a mobile application. We contacted another lab and they agreed to do the test, but this was after we called them repeatedly.
On May 16, we didn’t know what to do except to stand behind the door and look at our house being sealed. They also stuck a wide cellophane tape right down the middle of the door.
We were not informed that our door was going to be sealed, nor did the policemen press the doorbell as soon as they reached.
Watching them seal my door in the middle of a Saturday afternoon was unnerving, more so because I am claustrophobic and feel restless in closed spaces. Without even looking at us, the person in civil clothing asked us to note down the contact numbers of two persons who would be responsible for getting us groceries, medicines and other essential items.
But how were we going to get the items inside if the doors were absurdly taped?
They didn’t say anything, clicked pictures of us standing behind the door and of the notice board which said: “COVID Positive, Home Isolation,” and went away.
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We called the district magistrate to ask if we can break the seal a bit, but first he blamed us for not communicating properly with the police and then told us to manage through kitchen windows and perhaps use a screwdriver to change the door’s very structure.
We tried to do this, but failed.
While the feeling of being stuck inside for the next 14 days did terrify me, amidst my anxiety I was glad to see the quickness with which arrangements were being made within 48 hours of the test results arriving. Disinfectants were sprayed all across the society, a nurse WhatsApped us a prescription, and the state helpline service was prompt. I was glad the authorities were serious about our condition.
However, as days passed, I realised that these arrangements were largely about clicking pictures and putting things on record. The nurses would come every second day to update the notice outside our gate, note down some details and click pictures of our doors. Sometimes, they would even call the infected family member at the door to ask, “Sir aap theek hain?”
This exercise defeated the purpose of quarantining him in his room. They could have asked him the same question over a phone call.
Unlike policemen and other officials, the nurses would talk generously and message us over WhatsApp to ask us if we were taking medicines on time. But some of them would come without wearing a hazmat suit, saying, “Office se sirf mask aur gloves hi diye gaye hain”. They had only got masks and gloves from the office.
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But clicking pictures was necessary, they would say. It almost felt like we were a bunch of zoo animals unwillingly posing for cameras every second day.
The two persons who were assigned to get essential items from outside were not even provided with gloves or masks. They would come everyday with a cotton cloth haphazardly tied around their faces and no gloves. Two days after, they stopped coming because, as they say, the office refused to provide anything for their safety except when they asked. We eventually had to pay for their masks, gloves and sanitizers.
“Record register me sign karna reh gaya”, one of them said. They had to sign in a record register everyday, which they couldn’t for that one day they didn’t come. One of them fell sick a week later and was replaced.
The most difficult task everyday was to get vegetables and fruits inside through that small space between the doors. Sometimes, we had to take in the potatoes and tomatoes one by one. This would take hours. It would then take hours to clean them all. After a few days, we broke off the seal a bit to make our lives easier.
While my father was in a separate room; my mother, brother and I were also trying to maintain distance, walking around like wide-eyed zombies all day in our government flat, with gloves and masks on.
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I had labelled our utensils with the initials of our names so that they did not get mixed.
We would carefully take food from the kitchen and eat quietly in separate rooms, while my father played Rashid Khan in full volume. The doctors had advised us to keep sanitising our rooms and so the whole day would normally go into scrubbing floors, doors, windows and utensils. Our hands looked like leather, and fingers like raisins.
Another advice was to keep drinking hot water all day, but it was a bit difficult to do so because the temperature was soaring and we live on the top floor.
The days were claustrophobic to say the least. I had a difficult time sleeping and would send messages to my best friend at night, and she was kind enough to always respond. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the sealed door and that I can’t go to my terrace, which was the only place I would find peace in since the junta curfew was announced, and even before that.
Other family members too had a difficult time adjusting to the new routine.
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A few days before the home quarantine was about to end, we were informed that if the patient was not showing any symptoms, they would not have to get tested. If the authorities were so serious about sealing our doors, clicking so many pictures and calling us almost every morning, why weren’t they as serious about conducting another round of tests?
How do we go back to our lives if we don’t know whether we are out of danger?
We were also told to get tested from an ICMR-approved private lab if we wanted to. Even though ICMR has said that the labs may not necessarily charge Rs 4,500 per test, the private labs we contacted asked us to pay the exact amount. Some even refused to come home to collect samples.
Two days before the final day of home quarantine, another cycle of phone calls began. If a test was out of the window, was there any other way to know if we were safe? The doctors on the phone line said that my father’s Aarogya Setu app would show a green button in a week or so, and that ought to be enough to make us believe that we are.
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By this time, we had given up. Upon making several requests, the doctors agreed to send us a fitness certificate which just said “the patient is free to join the duty” and “corona cured”.
On the last day, one policeman came, once again without informing us, to take the seal off, which by then had almost come off. I do not know what purpose the seal served. I feel the notice was enough to make the delivery persons and neighbours aware of the fact that we are infected.
Three days after the home quarantine period, another group of nurses came, took off the notice board and asked my father to pose for their phone’s camera holding up a form which said his quarantine period has ended. He was also asked to smile.
I asked them what they do with the pictures, they had no answers.
Our Aarogya Setu app has still not shown the green button and I still haven’t gone to my terrace. The sealed life is yet to get over.