Created by
Abhimanyu,
Fellow, I Love My Gig Ontario 2025
Published
February 4, 2026
Anxiety
As I am writing this, I read the news: COVID-19 surges in India again. According to the latest report, there are at least 3,500 active cases.
Five years ago, it started like this. Slowly, then frantically, until the world slipped into utter chaos.
I was home then, like I am now, still unsure if I wished to come back home for good once I was done with my degree.
I was confused.
I loved the comfort and security of home as much as I loved the freedom and responsibility that came with being away.
The increasing number of cases brings back not-so-fond memories. This time, I at least know how to play the game. How to play it differently.
How different will it be this time?
Bereavement
They say 513 people have died so far.
I wonder if it’s the real number. Nobody knows how many passed last time. The real numbers were hidden. Buried. Like shame.
I try to feel bad about people who died. I cannot. They have turned into numbers.
Claustrophobia
I am afraid of being stuck. Last time, I was stuck for five months.
On the first day of those five months, I landed in my city. At the airport, we were screened. But I was not familiar with the technology of screening. A temperature check seemed like a checkup for dilated pupils. I, along with many others, was asked to surrender our passports and wait for further ‘instructions.’ After two hours of waiting, we were given back our passports and let go.
I saw the situation at the airport, the haphazard and almost uncontrolled crowd, and the lack of sufficient screening.
It began with a tweet. Not even an angry one—just a thread expressing concern about the lack of sufficient screening at the airport. I remember hesitating before posting it. I remember thinking: maybe it’s too much, maybe I should wait. But I tweeted anyway.
And that’s when it started. The five months.
Depression
The tweet went viral.
The media misused my tweet to criticize the authorities. There was panic in the air.
My father got worried.
I asked what he was worried about.
And he, an avid gambler, said that one never truly wins against the house, irrespective of how much one thinks one is winning. One never wins against authorities either.
He said that he was afraid this whole thing would spiral into something ugly.
And so, it did. Within the next few hours, the airport authorities released my video of being screened, labelled me as an online attention-seeker spreading lies and panic, and to make matters worse, released my address and phone number.
Was this the official handle of my city’s airport, or was it operated by some petty teenager? Nothing separated one from the other.
I received a notice from the local police station asking me to “cooperate in an inquiry.” No one told me what law I had supposedly broken. It was only after being taken to a government quarantine facility that I realized a case had been filed against me for spreading panic and misinformation.
And that was just the beginning.
I was taken into a quarantine facility for two weeks. For two weeks, I sat in a room with peeling walls and no windows. My father was in the room with me as well. I thought of all those who couldn’t tweet their way into visibility. I wondered if I would become one of them.
Epidemic
I was threatened online. An army of online trolls, picking at me.
Rape threats. Death threats.
Threats to vandalize my house.
Calls from all over. My phone rang almost every minute with someone on the other end, waiting, ready to curse me. Ready to call me anti-national.
Folie à deux
I called my friends for assurances.
Some of them said it was my fault. They said it like they didn’t know me.
Gaandu
They called me Gaandu.
Gaandu means an idiot. It also means an asshole, depending on the context.
Hallucination(s)?
A bunch of goons came to my house.
They vandalized it. They looted it. They called me names. They called my father names. They called my mother names.
A bunch of goons beat me to a pulp.
A bunch of goons fired me from my job.
A bunch of goons took over my country.
A bunch of goons took over this world.
Insomnia
I noticed the colour of the fan in the quarantine facility where I was housed for two weeks. It was a small room with two beds. My father was in the other bed, snoring.
The fan was brown, dust-covered. It rotated at 80 RPM. I was sweaty. I wanted a cigarette. There were no cigarettes or people anywhere close.
It was 2 AM. Every night, at 2 AM, I counted the rotations of the fan. Some nights, it was 86 RPM. I wonder how, why.
Job Syndrome
I am not getting my work done. I have that chapter to edit.
I have that chapter to rewrite.
I have that chapter to submit. I have that chapter to submit. I have that chapter to submit.
…have that chapter to submit.
…that chapter to submit.
…chapter to submit.
…to submit.
Submit.
Submit.
Do not protest—submit.
Kindness
I did not drink enough water, according to my mother.
Amidst the chaos and the police case, she was concerned whether I was hydrated and well-fed, and whether I liked the bed in the quarantine facility.
I always said I did.
Why does it seem like you are not sleeping well, then? She would ask.
Love
At the back of my head, all I could think of was my partner. We were just six months into our relationship, and that too a long-distance one. I visited because I was concerned about my family and her. Except, it seemed increasingly difficult to meet her.
Getting into a pickle with the authorities is generally enough to dissuade people from dating you.
Except she stuck around. Not just through the entire ordeal, but also through the accompanying trauma. Her company, her presence, nothing less than a soothing balm.
Melancholia
A cousin dropped my laptop at the quarantine facility.
I wanted to watch something that gave me the most joy.
I began watching The Big Lebowski, and when the credits rolled, I wondered how I ever liked such a film.
What a waste, I thought, what a waste!
Nightmares
- These stupid NRIs should be kicked out of this country!
- This guy has a PhD, and he does Theatre! Your theatrics will not work here!
- Book him and arrest him!
- Requesting the authorities to take appropriate action against this individual.
- Go back to Canada!
- Kill him!
OCD
I kept checking my phone, the news, social media, all of it to see if there were any new threats.
I kept checking to see if there were any updates as to when I would be taken to the station.
I kept checking my phone to read about prison conditions. I kept checking to see if there were cases of police brutality and lockup murders.
There were not a lot, but there were some.
Panic Attacks
My palms got sweaty every time I opened Twitter. Back then, it was not X. And one could see other tweets without having an account.
It never stopped at sweaty palms, though. It always progressed to shortness of breath, chest pain, elevated heartbeat.
I asked my friends who were in therapy, and they asked me to go too. More importantly, they asked me not to open Twitter anymore.
Quarantine
At the quarantine facility where they had put me up, they fed us Poha for breakfast for nine days straight.
And no chai in the evening.
Rest
Lying down with your eyes closed only meant seeing things you were afraid to see.
Rest was history.
Self-censorship
Democracy is a myth.
There is a genocide against minorities—always has been.
It is not complicated.
I want to take those bastards down!
Occupation is a crime.
Forced occupation is a crime.
Colonization is a crime.
Tobacco Addiction
I could not smoke for those days.
I wanted to.
It felt like cigarettes had the answers I was seeking.
Unspecified personality disorder
It’s the worst thing that can happen to me.
No, it can’t be the worst thing. There are dead people. There are hungry children. Some prisoners are raped.
I had not been taken into custody. What if they take me? What then?
Can I write a book from prison, like Nazim Hikmet, or Agyeya, or Ngugi wa Thiong’o?
Will the book sell because it was written from prison, or because it was a good book?
There are prisoners awaiting justice. I was simply waiting for the police.
Voyeurism
Watching porn helped.
Not much, but to a certain extent. Focusing on the body helped me take my mind off my mind.
Whatsapp University
Meanwhile, on WhatsApp, they forwarded those texts: banging thalis in the balcony together will create vibrations which will help us get rid of COVID.
The country was full of graduates from WhatsApp University.
Xenophobia
In the facility, I carefully looked at my face.
What if my features were more Asian looking? What if I belonged to North-east India?
They had beaten up a guy from Nagaland, calling him Chinese, holding him responsible for the virus.
Elsewhere, a president claimed the virus to be “Kung flu”.
There were worse things that people went through, I thought, as I looked at the mirror, washing my face.
Youngistan
In the email of a journal I was editing, I saw this:
“Your employee, Abhimanyu Acharya, is spreading online lies. Fire him!”
In the comment section of a literary journal that published one of my plays, a comment said: “The drama at the airport doesn’t suit you, Abhimanyu.”
A tweet read: “Make sure he never sees the light of day.” A caller on the phone: “Kyu be bhosdike!”
This was also Youngistan.
Zoom-in, Zoom-out
Zoom in there, my therapist says. I need to focus there, to face it, to overcome it. Therapy can be cruel.
I zoom in on each of those days. On my tweet.
On the tweet of the airport authorities. On the threats.
On the dusty fan.
On the Poha.
On the First Information Report.
On the day it all got over, and I went back to Canada.
On the day normalcy returned, but with a sword hanging over my head.
On the day I almost went to prison but didn’t.
On the online Zoom meetings with friends and colleagues, day in and day out.
On the day that changed my life.
I zoomed in on the day I decided to stay in Canada after my degree was done. I zoomed in on the day I decided not to return home.
About the creator
Abhimanyu is a multi-award winning writer, theatre-practitioner, translator, and scholar currently living in Ontario, Canada. He is a homecook and a chess enthusiast.
© Abhimanyu, 2025.
All texts are published with the permission of the artist. The creation and publication of this work was made possible with the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Government of Canada, Ontario Arts Council, and Government of Ontario.