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“You are also vacating, then. Everyone is leaving. The PG is empty,” Lali didi, our Nepali cook at the paying guest accommodation in Jaipur where I was temporarily staying, started a conversation. 

“Yes, I don’t have an option, do I?” I said.

Rajasthan had just announced a total lockdown, and I was supposed to reach Noida, my parents’ home. Someone advised us to leave before 10 AM to avoid getting stuck at highway checkpoints. Everything happened so fast that I could not even collect my things from the office – paintings, a table lamp from the previous year’s ‘Secret Santa’, and notes.

It was May 2021, so COVID-19 did not feel new or surreal. We knew the protocols by then, but not that another lockdown could happen or that a more disruptive variant was on its way. 

My father was already on his way to pick me up. I went to the owner’s flat, double-masked, to inform them that I would vacate that day and that the rent was already paid. “We won’t stop you. We understand,” he said. 

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

It was a family-run accommodation, and somehow they liked me there. Probably because I was the quiet kind, the one who ate silently in the dining hall and left without much noise. I did not have many friends. Between social distancing, work, and being away from home during a pandemic, the days felt heavy. 

My only friend there was Lali didi and her three-year-old son. We often talked and sometimes had breakfast together. I once helped her order bedsheets online, and that was when I realised she was younger than me. I did not care much for the food since it was always vegetarian, but I grew fond of her. 

She used to make noodles for breakfast, and I began to look forward to it. There was a week when she made them three times. Paired with her sweet tea, those noodles became my small source of comfort, a thread of routine in an otherwise uncertain and lonely time.

The morning I was leaving, we shared our last breakfast together. And the menu, by coincidence, was noodles with sweet tea. 

Our chairs were kept apart for social distancing. She sat at the table across from me. Between sips and silence, she said she would miss me and asked if I would ever come back. Then she mentioned that her husband was coughing and had been quarantined in one of the empty rooms. That part made my chest tighten. 

I told her I would miss her and Chhotu too. We did not talk much after that, but the silence said enough. Before leaving, I wanted to tell her that those noodles she made for breakfast were the only thing that felt bearable in those long, uncertain days. 

Looking back, I realise it was never just about breakfast. It was about the warmth of familiarity when everything else was uncertain. Sometimes small kindnesses shared quietly are what help us keep moving. 

Ananta Dutta is a marketing and communications professional based out of Mumbai.

© The Wire