I found humility, perspective, and hope

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Editor's note: When the pandemic broke out earlier this year, I was in Rome. News had filtered through before I left Delhi at the end of February that the north of Italy was under “lockdown”. What does that mean, I wondered? I left anyway, despite some misgiving—I was to be in Rome for new book research. I’d been granted funds. I needed access to specialist libraries, and museums, and reading rooms. I couldn’t not go. Same for a friend, Justine, who flew in from Berlin and joined me at Fiumicino airport. Justine is a playwright, and after several struggles on the personal front, she was emerging to give herself a break, a small sabbatical, to rejuvenate, to work on a new play. So we booked an old apartment in Trastevere, to work, to live, to be in Rome for three weeks. This was our plan. The chaos crept up on us slowly. When we arrived, and made ourselves at home, settling in, the city still bustled busily around us. Hand sanitiser, forebodingly, was out of stock. Luckily we’d brought our own. We …