My years in Delhi taught me the art of adapting to any environment. Covid instructed me how to be the perfect escape artist. Maybe, it’s in the genes because I see the same in my daughters.

 

During my surgery, this skill was put to the best use at the hospital. The pandemic had presented before us many unusual situations. Lifts were crowded and to avoid breathing the enclosed air, it was just healthier to traverse the wide-open stairs!

 

The girls would run through the two blocks via the stairs. And the poor chap at security would mumble and jumble, in his blues, tweaking his cap, “Madam Ji idhar se nahi”!

 

But who cared! They had mastered the art (via genetics) and would trudge up many floors to my room surreptitiously.  And take the short route via the stairs to the adjoining block to clear billing.

 

Later, as the chemo fog cleared, I tried to remember the turns of these corridors. The newly placed guard manning the ground floor stairwell door at oncology would question:

“Madam Ji, kidhar jaa rahe ho”?

He was distinctly uncomfortable as he saw me crisscross several times between billing, OPD and the washrooms.

 

He was merely doing his job well, which was to ask questions and to interrogate the movements of every suspicious individual.

 

And I was doing mine equally well too, to look every bit the dubious, suspicious Delhi Auntiji, breaking every rule of the game, mask, hat, scarf, gloves and winter cape, notwithstanding!