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This story was written by Aysha Tanya in response to the following prompt:
Lockdown 2023: You are writing this entry in September 2023. The world has been in lockdown for three years. Besides sporadic trips to the grocery, you have not seen the outside world. Your exercise is to write a piece about your three years in lockdown.
by Aysha Tanya
I got Chibi in February, 2020, a month before the country went into lockdown. She arrived in a powder-blue carrier, and wobbled out into my living room (and into my heart) as soon as I undid the latch. She was more fur than cat in those first few weeks, a cloud of grey walking in my shadow, with her alert almond-shaped eyes laying claim to her new home: the zizi plant on the floor that she liked to swat every time she walked past, the washing machine she sat in front of, mesmerised, only her eyes darting round and round.
Those first few weeks were special, learning to see my home through the eyes of a kitten small enough to fit into my palm. Marvelling at how a one-bedroom apartment contains several worlds for a cat. Little did I know that soon, my own world would abruptly shrink to almost the same size. (I say almost because I could still go out to the balcony, a strict no-no for Chibi to whom railings meant nothing).
Before Chibi came into my life, back in those days when we didn’t think twice about shaking hands with strangers — even hugging them sometimes — the apartment felt like a waiting room at a train station (a nice one, one whose curtains and cushions I got to pick, of course), a resting place before we stepped out into our next adventure. The space felt small. The opportunities and experiences, limited.
The first few weeks of lockdown had me feeling like I was living in a box where the sides were collapsing into itself. Looking back, I suspect even Buckingham Palace might feel small if there is a kitten on the loose refusing to be toilet trained.
Those were trying times. It was peak summer, and I was walking around the apartment wearing socks, because Chibi was going through a phase where no toe was left un-nipped. The world felt like it was ending, and I couldn’t even walk around my own home without socks for fear of being ambushed.
Chibi and I found common ground in an unlikely place — the television. The only time I felt this furry Attila the Hun soften and relax was when I turned on the TV. The food shows were our favourite. While stews and braises bubbled away on a stove on-screen, Chibi would curl up next to me, a tiny, purring comma. One evening, as Nigella tucked into a pile of Marmite spaghetti, Chibi watched attentively, her eyes blinking slowly, affectionately digging her claws into my arm.
Over several seasons of Nigella’s cooking shows, we have come to understand each other better. Chibi graduated from nipping at my toes to sharpening her claws on the furniture. She even learned to sun-bathe in the balcony without wanting to jump the railing. The washing machine, however, is still an endless source of entertainment.
Now a middle-aged cat, Chibi spends most of her days sunbathing in the patches of sunlight that filter through the leaves of the bougainvillea. She is in a deep and committed relationship with the parrots who live in the jamun tree overlooking the balcony, hoping, I’m sure, that they reciprocate her interest someday.
I spend my days writing and cooking. Dreaming of writing a cookbook and perhaps cooking for someone other than myself sometime soon.
If I had known, at the start of the lockdown, that I would be spending the next few years confined to this apartment, with only a cat for company, I would have been certain that claustrophobia would set in in no time. However, the years have shown me that a home, like a person, contains multitudes; that the four walls of a house are living, breathing beings that stretch to hold all of the parallel lives that are unfolding inside it. While our days are spent in our individual activities in different corners of the home, in the evenings, when I turn on the TV and settle into the couch, Chibi saunters in and makes herself comfortable next to me. For those few hours, our lives intersect and our home feels infinite.
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Aysha Tanya is the co-founder of Goya Journal, a digital food and culture publication.
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