By Tanka Dahal
It was the early days of the pandemic when the COVID-19 was taking its flight from Wuhan, China, and was landing at various destinations across the world. Where COVID-19 landed it upset the routines and put the lives of people under threat. More than that it tormented people’s well-being. An onslaught of news of daily death figures gave rise to anxiety and fear. The UK government, after ambivalent initial months, had clamped a nationwide lockdown. The provision of testing was scarce. My wife Anita worked in a palliative care unit of NHS Grampian where patients with terminal illnesses were taken care of in the final days of their lives and, one day, in February 2020, she came home feeling feverish.
That was the beginning of it. She was in isolation for a few days but perhaps the virus that could travel from Wuhan to the remotest corners of the world was difficult to contain in a room and on the third day it got hold of everyone in the family.
The project on which I worked as a post-doctoral fellow had just come to an end with the outbreak of the pandemic. Some out-reach programmes planned and scheduled for the following months were cancelled. The plan for implementing the new curriculum in the school the project partnered with, was never carried out as the lockdown enforced school closure. The end of the job had left me in a vacuum. This vacuum was of less concern when the psychological tremors inflicted by the infection were bigger at the moment.
It was the time for me when I needed to be proactive in looking out for opportunities, I, like numerous people around and across the world, was domiciled within the confines of my residence, physically, socially, and mentally. Overcoming the symptoms was the priority because the anxiety of the ailment getting worse was on the way. The agency made up academic achievement, professional experience, and career goal was on one side and the sense of vulnerability caused by the ailment, the essence of truth about life and its transitoriness was on the other. Transitions through these dimensions were multi-layered and complex.
That was the time when all of the socio-psychological structures were being questioned and challenged while combatting illness and at the same time experiencing transition into restricted living conditions. The most troubling fact was that people felt helpless with no clear idea of how to deal with the situation. There was no proper testing provision and not much knowledge about coping strategies. The trouble eventually wore off but not without consequences. The study of the impact of the covid restriction on children and people of all age groups is of prime concern today and will be of prime concern in the years to come.
It felt as if the Covid
transformed the world into a new university
where resilience was tested in a laboratory of people’s minds
Each day and each moment
Human life’s tree shed several leaves
Resulting in a tsunami of sorrow,
tears and unending trauma.
When I was suffering a continual fever one of my friends was taken to the hospital and was kept on a ventilator, causing tremors of shock within me. He continued fighting death for seventeen days. His sons, who were my sons’ friends, remained stressed because as their dad fought death in the hospital on his own, their mum and themselves were not allowed to visit him. The emotional impact on them was deep which also affected my sons. At the time when you feel vulnerable, finding means to cope and drive yourself forward is crucial. Children were reliant on digitised socialising, engaged in games and group chats. Yet, some kind of unhappiness loomed in their faces.
The fog in my children’s faces
Fogged my heart,
Mist on my face
Hung just like that.
For quite a long I felt like having a brain fog that caused tiredness and hopelessness. A peer-reviewed journal returned the article with reviewers’ feedback for revision. I had to work on it, but I was unable to do it for quite a long time. I had almost given up until one morning Keith Topping, my Ph.D. supervisor and co-author of the article, sent a message asking about it. This message woke me up to the duty I needed to carry out.
Besides, the trouble for me was whether to communicate the news of my infection to my distant mother. I was sure the news could trigger a deeper shock in her as it was the early days of the pandemic and the news of suffering and death could be a source of dread. The ambivalence gripped my psyche and I ended up waiting for myself to recover not releasing the news. This was how the pandemic compelled us to mask the reality and hid it from distant relations, and this was more traumatic for immigrants.
Another troubling aspect was to save ourselves from having claustrophobic feelings, a feeling of being trapped in a narrow space forever, which I constantly felt. Navigating through a feeling of utter loneliness was laborious.
They said
Don’t go closer to your mate
They said
A human touch could be fatal
They said
The air can be violent like
waters in a turbulent sea
When the daylight failed
Memories soared
I hugged myself several times,
One in the name of my mother
The other in the name of my beloved
The way the fishermen
Return home in the evening
With lines and hooks
The way the sailors
Return torn and fatigued
I receded in bed
Torn into pieces within
To dream of human company
Loved ones
Sitting around the fire
Rhythm of joy
Filling the air.
Measures that Helped me Out and Can Help Many
During the initial phase of Covid infection, I was at a loss. Later, I embraced these to find a way out. The measures I practised were truly helpful and I believe will be useful for everybody both during the infection and in the post-covid period. These can be followed throughout a lifetime.
Hobby/Passion
In my experience, following a hobby or passion can play a vital role in liberating to some extent from anxiety and the state of helplessness. Poetry and literary engagement have been my passion since my high school days. This came to my aid at this time. I began to reflect on relational dynamics between life, human ambition, disease, dreams, and so on. Creativity and imagination brought solace to me. I realised that being creatively productive was a powerful coping tool. I got several of the poems I wrote in my native Nepali published during that time.
Yoga and Meditation: Practices for Health and Inner Peace
During this time, I continued exploring means of finding mental, and psychological stability and means that could help strike a balance between physical and psychological being. I found yoga practice – some asanas (yogic body postures) and pranayama (slow and deep breathing practice) a wonderful means to quieten my noisy mind and pave the way to securing tranquillity. The pranayama brought relaxation and helped meditation by sharpening focus on one thing rather than many.
Meditating
I felt that some blissful nectar
dripped on my consciousness
Feeling of sweetness
Mellowing my thoughts.
Nature a Great Calmer
Bringing awareness to the pulsating life around us by consciously looking at the miracles happening with soil, plants, grass, wind, sunshine, sky, birds, diverse creatures, and animals in the natural world can have a most powerful calming effect. I spent hours sitting in my back garden and watching everything and listening to every sound; especially bird chirps are my favourite. Stewart Park forest borders the edge of our garden. That has its own magic and bliss. There are tall trees, short trees, bushes and grass. They are diverse by age and kinds but they live in perfect harmony. Even a little awareness of this amongst us can have an immense impact. Nature embodies a never-ending source of life despite such an unforeseen human intrusion. Although Covid is also a nature’s creation, this destructive force can be contained by creative and constructive elements in Nature.
Dr. Tanka Dahal is an early career researcher and a higher education teaching professional. He completed his doctoral studies in education in 2019 from school of education, University of Dundee. Currently, he is in a teaching role in M.Ed. teacher education programme, at school of education, University of Dundee, where he also worked previously as post-doctoral research fellow in a Scottish Government funded project.
Photograph: Divya Jindal-Snape
