At about 4 PM while sipping his tea, Appa More called his friend Bapu Nadkarni on his mobile, but he did not pick it up. Fifteen minutes later, Appa’s phone rang. It was Arnav, the grandson of his friend Bapu.
“Hello Arnav, how are you? I was trying to reach your grandfather some time back,” the 77-year-old Appa said.
“Yes, I saw the call,” Arnav replied.
“I spoke to Bapu last week for a while. At that time, he was a bit busy, so we didn’t have a detailed chat. So I thought I will talk to him now and enquire about his health. Nothing urgent as such. Can you pass on the message?” Appa said.
“No. I can’t. Because Grandpa passed away yesterday,” Arnav informed a shocked Appa.
After a long, stunned silence, Appa regained his senses.
“Oh, how? I didn’t know,” Appa tried to get back his composure. He held on to his shaking teacup in one hand and a quivering mobile in the other.
“Yes, he had some breathing trouble four days back. We went to his house and rushed him to hospital. In the hospital, they said he was also infected by the virus,” Arnav informed Appa.
“Oh, no, how did he get that? He stayed alone all the time at home,” Appa asked.
“I don’t know. He passed away soon after that. Because of this pandemic, we didn’t tell anyone as most of you can’t come,” Arnav informed Appa.
“Oh, I am so, so deeply sorry. I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am. This is a strange situation. I can’t move out of the house anywhere. Even for my friend’s funeral, I can’t step out,” Appa lamented, the pitch of his voice at its most shrill level.
“Yes, Grandpa. We understand. It’s an unusual situation,” Arnav agreed.
“This virus has made life so tough. Is your mother there?” Appa asked for Bapu’s daughter.
“Yes, I will give her the phone,” Arnav said.
“Very sad to hear about Bapu’s demise. I knew he had a heart ailment, but I didn’t expect to get this news this way. And that too due to this virus,” Appa said.
“Yes, Uncle. I am sorry you got it this way. I was going to call you in a couple of days. He had heart problems, but we aren’t sure how he got this virus. We didn’t even see him when he breathed his last,” she said in broken voice.
“It’s a very sad time. How can this virus infect someone who lives alone at home? Nobody knows anything,” Appa lamented with fiery red eyes filled with anger. He calmed down, after a few moments, when he realised that this was a time not for anger, but for grief. “It’s alright if you didn’t call me. I wouldn’t have come for the funeral. I can’t come to meet you too. Bapu has anyway gone. You take care of yourself and everyone else. God bless,” Appa said, with his face desolate and eyes welled up, and hung up.
He remained seated for a few minutes that evening digesting the news of Bapu’s demise. Friends for over forty years, they had spent many precious moments of life together. Appa shed a few silent tears for his friend. Living alone and with nowhere to go, his grief remained bottled up. He tried to distract himself and picked up his mobile phone.
But what occupied his mind was something else. The repeating thought didn’t escape the innermost echelons of his mind. The thought that this was the third time a death of a close friend had happened in close succession. It astounded his mind. How are so many of his septuagenarian friends dropping dead like this due to this pandemic? That too when they were all living alone? This can’t be a mere coincidence, his mind impelled him to conclude.
Around three weeks back, Appa had called his colleague and close friend Datta on his mobile too. They had spoken for a while with a promise to continue a few days later. Appa had waited for Datta to call. Appa had messaged Datta too but hadn’t got any response. He had then called Datta’s wife but hadn’t got any response.
Three days later she had called him back. Datta was in the ICU, she had said. He had got infected by the virus. Later, he had read Datta’s obituary in the newspaper.
The pandemic had confined Appa and his friends to their homes. Appa had been careful, to the extent of being paranoid, about stepping out of the house. The mobile phone was his only source of information and social interaction. It was his only source of getting to know what was happening in the world. He spent most of his time on the mobile phone. Some of that time was in talking with friends or relatives. But most of the time on the phone was on social media, news, and online ordering apps.
The news and information he got from there were morbid.
So many infected, so many dead – every day the scorecard read, reported by city, state, and country. These numbers flashed about everywhere – not only on his mobile phone. They shouted out from on TV or from newspapers, where he spent a few hours daily. Majority of the dead were above 60, many of these sources said.
Do this to stop infection, do that to increase immunity, don’t step out without a mask. All these messages bombarded Appa on his mobile.
The fear of death was always high in Appa and his age group. After he had crossed 70, Appa had made and remade his will. He had made sure all his matters were in order, lest he might drop dead with no time to sort them out. Now this pandemic made him feel as if it was lurking outside the house, waiting for him. So Appa never stepped out.
But the thought now creeped into his mind that death lurked not only outside the house. It seemed to him that death also made its presence felt on the other side of the phone. He wondered whose death awaited him when he spoke to someone on the phone. It was Bapu today and Datta a few weeks back. Before that he remembered chatting with another friend. And losing him to the pandemic.
A couple of weeks before Datta, Appa had spoken to Guha. This time it was Guha who had called Appa. They had chatted a long time about all and sundry. They started with their usual share of health and family enquiries. Then they had shared their woes on how the pandemic made life hell for senior citizens. That had meant a call of close to 40 minutes with Guha. About two weeks after that, Appa had received a call from their common friend Narayanan. “Guha is in hospital,” he had said. “They shifted him to the ICU. He has the virus. He is critical,” Narayanan continued. His voice was full of concern. Three days later Guha had passed away.
Three deaths in close succession were too much to handle. First Guha, then Datta and today Bapu. None of whom had stepped out of their homes and had somehow contracted the virus.
Appa thought that this virus spread via droplets from the mouth or nose. But he had read somewhere that it stayed in the air too. Some news items he received said it could pass through touch. Appa had read somewhere that paper or glass surfaces spread it. He had also got messages that metal surfaces may also be responsible. Whatever it was, Appa felt it was better to be safe than sorry. He made sure that he was taking every precaution.
He had finished four bottles of sanitizer since this pandemic had broken out. He protected himself with the ferocity of one who had a treasure to hide. He scrubbed sanitizer on himself and all living and non-living things he got in touch with. He had five masks that he used one after the other without repetition. He washed them every day after daily use, even though he didn’t go out. He had started drinking a ginger lemon clove concoction in hot water. He had got a message saying it was useful in building immunity. He had even bought a steam machine when someone sent him a video that said taking steam daily would kill the virus. He felt he was doing enough.
Till one day after Bapu’s demise, he received another message on his phone in one of his social groups. It said, “Is your phone carrying the deadly virus?” Appa clicked on the message and read through it. It said that doctors worried that mobile phones were silent carriers of the virus. It was a long article that Appa read with concentration.
At the end of the message, there was another message, “Click here now to check your phone!” Appa clicked on that link. It opened some other windows on his phone which he kept clicking on. He waited, in all earnestness for the program to work and provide the result. After an excruciating wait, another message popped up. It kept flashing. It said, “Your phone is infected. Your phone has the virus.” Appa got the shock of his life. He dropped the phone and went a few feet away.
How is this possible, he questioned in a sudden bout of consternation. He had cleaned his phone with sanitizer only yesterday. No one comes to my house, he pondered and, in a hurry, recollected all visitors he had. But he always stood at least six feet away when he took deliveries, he reassured himself.
But the phone was now infected with the virus. Does it now mean that I can’t call anyone? he asked himself. And what if someone calls me? Should I take the call or not? What about messages and apps? Can I use them or not now that the virus has infected the phone? These and so many other questions troubled Appa. He had no answer. He started sweating with anxiety. To be safe, he decided that it was better not to use the phone.
Then another thought struck him. Does an infected phone transfer its virus to others? What if it does? What if all callers also get it? What if all those I called also got infected by the virus? That’s when Appa started shaking in fright, trembling in terror. Anyone who said ignorance is bliss was wrong.
Did I pass the virus to Bapu in an inadvertent act? This doubt crept into Appa and his empty mind. And what about Datta? And Guha too?
Appa started shaking like a leaf in the breeze. His feet quivered and his lips started twitching. His heart palpitated faster. The possibility that he and his phone were carriers shook him. That they might be transmitters of that deadly virus to his friends put him in despair. A wave of gloom and despondency overcame him.
It was way past lunch time. But Appa hadn’t ordered his lunch. He needed the phone for it. Should he order it using an infected mobile?
He started panicking in his mind. For a moment, he felt like calling his daughter. She stayed two blocks away. But how could he? He thought of messaging her. But stopped short of doing it. He spent a few tense hours thinking about how he should get himself out of this fix. He can’t step out. He can’t let anyone come home. And now he can’t call or message anyone due to his infected phone.
That’s when his phone rang. It was his daughter. Should he take the call? Will the infected mobile transfer the infection? He had to decide in the next few seconds. It was too risky. He can’t let his own daughter suffer because he has got caught in this situation. He decided against it.
He knew he was stuck and resigned himself to his fate. While lost in thought, he started feeling giddy. He thought the tension got to him. He walked towards his bed but felt he was going to lose his balance. Was it the virus acting? he thought. He caught the end of his bed and sat on it somehow. He searched for a glass of water but couldn’t find it. He realised that he wasn’t able to see what was in front of him. Everything appeared blurry. He felt his end was near. The virus had got him, he felt. After getting three of his close friends. He started chanting the name of God. He was certain that the end was near. He dropped his head on the pillow so that he doesn’t fall. After that, he blanked out and didn’t remember anything.
***
It was only at 8 pm when his daughter woke him up with a splash of water that he opened his eyes. His grandson came near him with a spoon of glucose powder and tried to feed him. Appa coiled away in fear. “Where am I? Am I at home?” he asked and recognized his surroundings. Then he cried aloud, “I am infected with the virus, don’t come near me.”
“What nonsense, Papa! You don’t go anywhere, how will it infect you?” His daughter reprimanded him.
“No, no. It infected Bapu too. And Datta. And Guha also. Though they didn’t go anywhere,” Appa claimed.
“Ok we will test you. But why didn’t you pick up your phone?” she asked him with his phone in her hand. “I have been calling you since lunch.”
“No.. no.. keep it away, don’t touch my phone. Even that’s infected. In fact, the phone is the source of the virus,” Appa yelled out, and pulled the phone from his daughter’s hand.
“Infected? Phone?” Appa’s daughter stared aghast at him. She looked at her teenage son who was sitting across the room. She raised her eyebrows asking him what’s wrong. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, I checked it before lunch,” Appa replied with confidence.
“Checked what before lunch?” his daughter asked.
“That the phone has the virus,” Appa replied.
“And what did you have for lunch?” the daughter asked, unable to understand what Appa was talking about. Her face had the frown and forehead had wrinkles that indicated unanswered questions.
Appa gave her a blank stare. He didn’t remember what he had for lunch. That was because he had missed lunch. He remembered taking his insulin but couldn’t recollect having lunch.
“I had…what for lunch? I can’t remember…umm.. I had my insulin, and then….then this phone infection…yes, it got me before lunch,” Appa said.
“How many times have I told you not to skip meals? You are a diabetic, Papa! You know low sugar makes you dizzy!” she scolded him. “No wonder, you were lying unconscious when we came in. I came after you didn’t pick my call five times,” his daughter rebuked him.
“But I am infected. And the phone is also infected. With the virus,” Appa insisted.
“What nonsense is this? How can the virus infect your phone? How do you know?” his irate daughter asked.
“See this message in my seniors group,” Appa pointed to a message on his phone to his daughter. His grandson peeped in. “Stay away, don’t come close to me,” Appa howled at him again and coiled back from him.
His grandson broke into laughter on seeing it.
“Why are you laughing?” Appa asked.
“Grandpa, why do you believe everything you get on social media?” he said, breaking into a loud giggle. And then he added, “It’s a fake message. That is the virus.”
***