“I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”

Oscar Wilde

As much as I agree with Oscar Wilde, I couldn’t wait to meet my family during my 14 days of quarantine, and was counting down my days, and that explains why I chose ‘The Final Countdown” by Europe for this post. Well, of course I wasn’t headed to Venus though like the song suggests, I was just headed back to home but it did seem like quite a journey.

As most of you know, India is trying to take precautions to limit the spread of Covid-19 by quarantining international passengers for two weeks and making sure they get a Covid-19 test done before they start meeting people. I have stayed in a studio apartment for about 2 years in the USA all by myself, so I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. But little did I realize the cake I had devoured before had icing and fresh fruits and amazing add-ons but this one I was going to be diving into would be a cornbread and not a cake. *I am sure you’d realize how hungry I am right now while writing this post*

My husband being the funny guy he is, made sure the driver played “Ye Jo Desh Hai Tera” from the movie Swades. To give a context of this song, it talks about the dilemma of a successful immigrant played by Shahrukh Khan over whether he should listen to his inner voice that wants him to go back to his native country and pay back to the people of that country. The ride was a pretty delightful drive as I had ample of leg space in the car (read the entire car for myself) after a 14.5 hour cramped up air journey, and as I landed on a rainy day in August, I was experiencing Mumbai monsoons after 7 years which is my favorite time of the year in India.

My 7-day quarantine at Taj Palace, Colaba

I reached the hotel at around 3 pm, and went through check-in which included a temperature check, explanation of certain quarantine instructions I had to follow and testing procedures which I would have to undergo, and then was handed over my room keys.

Day 1: I was determined I wasn’t going to sleep right after my shower or else I’d be severely jet-lagged, so I tried switching on my TV, but due to the rains the cable box wasn’t working and it wasn’t a smart TV, so I went on to watch ‘Crash Landing On You’ on my laptop (highly recommended Korean drama if you like watching rom-coms). Soon enough I was binge-watching this series as I had pretty much nothing else to do. The rest of the day was pretty much eating, Netflixing (I am pretty sure it’s not a verb, but I just made it one), calling up family and friends and sleeping.

Day 2: I woke up at 4am (there begins my jet-lag for the next 5 days), and I wondered what do I do today and thought I should try setting up a schedule for myself for the next few days, so I started off with working out in my room, felt amazing about myself and thought well my quarantine did start off great. I went off to take a shower and wondered what do I do next and that wondering took most of my time as I was just whiling away time on social media that’s when the doorbell rang at 8 am which meant my breakfast was kept outside my room. Post breakfast, I lied down on my bed and then thought that a nap wouldn’t hurt, but little did I know this nap would end up as a 4-hour sleep time (Hello jet-lag! By now it had become my best friend). Then the doorbell rang again, which meant it was lunch-time. While having lunch I decided to switch up my Netflix viewing to Selling Sunset Season 3 (If you want to see multi-million $ real-estate in LA and drama around selling it, you could add this to your watch list). I really wanted to go into my balcony and enjoy a cup of tea but the rains were pretty bad and I just had to wait it out for another day. The rest of the day was trying to learn a couple of dance choreographies, and then again it was meal-time and sleep time.

Day 3- Day 7: As much as I’d have loved to say I enjoyed my quarantine at the Taj, Day 3 to 7 had pretty much made me miss home and seeing people. Don’t get me wrong, the room was the best I could get, I had someone call in almost every day from the reception to ask if I needed anything, the meals were sent to me on time, so yes it was a perfect physical environment and I truly appreciate the service, but I missed human contact. I used to sit out in the balcony (now that the rains had stopped for a while), sip on my cup of green tea in the mornings, read books while enjoying the scent of the sea and occasionally watch people trying to get a selfie with the gateway of India from the road down below as the monument has been closed for the public for a while due to the pandemic.

I did work out all the days before jet-lag took over for the day, but I was easy on myself and didn’t try hard to get rid of the jet-lag as this was my first real break after a really long time when I got time to myself. One funny habit which I had developed because I was missing people was running to the door once the doorbell rang for meals just to say hello to the hotel staff in their PPE kits which made me feel like I still had some human contact around me.

On day 4, I under-went the RT-PCR test. To be honest I was a bit scared about this one as I was told it was going to be painful when they do the nasal swab but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it was just uncomfortable. But now that my test was done, it was indeed the final countdown before I went home but that is only after I got my test results negative which did come out negative by Day 6 which made me super relieved that now I could go home the next day. Although I was going to go through another 7 days of home quarantine but I couldn’t wait to see mom, dad, grandma and Pratik (my husband) after 6 months post my wedding and eat home cooked meals. When I left the hotel, I had a ‘home quarantined until’ stamped on my hand by the govt officials. As much as a novel idea this was, the ink was low quality and it faded out by the next day. 😐

My 7-day quarantine at home

I CANNOT express the joy of coming back home, seeing loved ones during such tough times and then it finally sunk in: I am back home for real! 🙂 I did keep my distance from my family due to being in quarantine but enjoyed the monsoons from my terrace, chatted with my mom through my room door and ate amazing food cooked by my mom which were ONLY meals I love eating! I was indeed pampered at home! And of course, seeing Pratik felt unreal as I wasn’t conversing with him over messages or video calls anymore, it was going to be in person from now on! <3

I wish I could’ve given you a dramatic post on how quarantine was super awesome, but it wasn’t. It was definitely a mind-game where you’d have to keep your mind occupied with positive thoughts, activities and not let it wander off. All I will suggest is, keep calm and take each day as it comes. That’s pretty much been my motto through this pandemic as well. One of my friends, in my initial days of quarantine shared with me a pretty crazy isolation experiment video which made realize my quarantine was way better than the self-torture inflicted onto himself by Michael Stevens as an experiment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4). But the video does make you realize how underrated loneliness and boredom is, and how it could impact a person.

Keep a lookout for my next post where I’ll let you know on my move to Pune: my final destination which is going to be my home going forward. Also, as obnoxious as I sound, I’ve almost never liked Pune before in my life but here I am giving it a chance as I’ve heard only great things about it from everyone. 🙂

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