When the coronavirus first came to Mumbai we were really happy that it missed us. After all, it was an unknown entity and as far as we knew, it was another avatar of Yama, the Indian God of Death. Gruesome videos showing people dropping dead like flies in China, old people’s homes getting emptied out because of inmates dying and hourly newscasts broadcasting rising numbers did nothing to reassure us that a robust immune system and responsible behaviour were good enough to keep the virus at bay.

Initially, we watched with horror as the Pandemic became the First Wave and then the Second.

Our building society drew up an SOP that was followed strictly by all the residents. So during the first two waves, we smugly watched other buildings get sealed off while our building remained CoVid free. We not only had strict rules for residents and visitors but our managing committee even arranged for weekly visits from a reputed supermarket to ensure we got an uninterrupted supply of food and groceries. As a matter of fact, most people began ordering in takeaways from homegrown chefs and favourite restaurants which did home deliveries.

In fact, the first-ever family to get CoVid were offered support from the entire building yet when they came out of quarantine they were looked upon with gazes ranging from judgemental, fear, and might I say it, pity and disdain? But we were one of the few building societies that managed to keep the building unsealed for the entire pandemic.

These measures as well as the vaccines helped reassure us that we would be one of the few people worldwide to go through the entire pandemic without succumbing to the virus.

Six at one blow

Alas, when one year became two, we imagined that the virus would be around forever morphing and mutating from Alpha to Zeta and all the alphabets in between. And, everyone we knew was getting it!

And finally, when we thought the virus would turn its nose up at us, we were finally struck and we heaved a sigh of relief. No longer would we be stigmatised by being the only ones in Mumbai untouched by the virus. We finally became a statistic and ONE of the many millions of families worldwide who suffered from CoVid albeit the milder variant (OMICRON) and almost at the fag end of the pandemic.

Ironically, we had just a week to go before our Booster doses were due but Ms.Papaya came home with weird symptoms of a body ache, a tummy ache, and a mild fever. Something in her look convinced me that something was amiss and even though she didn’t exhibit typical signs of CoVid we did a home test ad discovered it to be positive.

I tested everyone at home then and found that all of us were sailing in the same boat. Surprisingly, I was relieved because it meant that all of us could be isolated and quarantined in our own home, looking after each other in the process, and getting over and done with it at one go.

The OMICRON variant was mild and within 3 days we were all back on our feet.

And with us developing anti-bodies on our own, we were now free to roam around without fear of getting sick.

Did any of you get sick this month?

Ciao