You can never be too prepared

A slightly fictionalised account of how we prepared for the last award presentation ceremony, the many worries, and how everything fell in place eventually.

‘You should get a Covid test done not more than 2 days before your departure and carry your negative test report with you, otherwise you will have to be in isolation till the PCR-Test report comes in. And if we are unlucky, it might not come in before the start of the meeting,’ I had warned Aradhana, our invited speaker for the big award-presentation event scheduled for Saturday. She reassured me that she would get the test done before she left Kochi.

Of course that did not keep me from worrying about what would happen if she tested positive. In that case, she would have to cancel her trip to Guwahati. And we would have to organize to have her deliver her invited lecture via a Zoom link on the day. That would mean some extra work but should be possible, I told myself. Thankfully she tested negative.

We did a final run-through of who was supposed to do what on Thursday morning. That would give us a couple of days in case anything needed to be sorted out before the meeting on Saturday afternoon. Jonti would be coordinating the transport, Tithi would be handling the cash, Bodhi would take care of the book-sale outside the hall, Basanta and Rontu would be in charge of the tea and snacks. Our principal trouble shooter Kushal would get the leaflet and other publicity material. We already had a moderator for the programme and the hall had been booked. We had roped in a young man who was good with such things to broadcast the whole programme live on FB for all those who wanted to attend but did not want to expose themselves. And Lutfa was going to request four of her students to act as volunteers for the event. With that, I imagined we had thought of everything.

On Thursday afternoon I went to pick our chief guest Aradhana from the airport. ‘Yes, the flight is more or less on time,' Aradhana, told me. 'But there is a slight technical problem.’

‘Oh God, what is it?’ I asked Aradhana, in consternation. I was so nervous about the forthcoming event that the very word ‘problem’ sounded like doom.

‘I have my Covid test report on my phone but it is all in Malayalam!’ she announced.

‘Let’s hope someone at the airport can help to translate it and convince the doctor on duty there,’ I replied. I was a little surprised that she had not thought about this earlier. After all, a doctor at Guwahati airport cannot be expected to be able to make sense of Covid test reports in all the many official languages we have in our country. And since Malayalam had a different script altogether, the chances of his being able to make sense of the report was even smaller.

Those couple of hours till Aradhana emerged from the airport were sheer agony. I had tried to figure out what I would do in the worst case scenario when they would refuse to accept her test report and insist on testing her again. I would have to call my doctor friend and ask her to talk to the doctor on duty there. Who else could help? Anyway, in the end the doctor managed to use the link to check her test report on the website and let her go. First hurdle crossed!

‘Our Wifi is out of order since a couple of days, hope you don’t mind,’ the lady at the Guest House informed us. Seeing Aradhana’s face fall I realized that she did mind. I quickly reassured her that I would lend her my Jio hotspot for the next days.

‘How will you manage without it?’ Aradhana asked me.

‘Don’t worry about me, I will be fine,’ I reassured her.

There was a huge thunderstorm on Thursday evening, which brought down temperatures considerably. If the rains continue we would have even fewer people attending our event physically, I told myself. In any case we were not expecting too many people to attend because of the fear of Covid. We had tried our best to make sure we did what we could to reassure those who actually came. I had ordered 100 disposable masks for distribution and two big sanitizer bottles for the two entry points to make sure that the people who actually attended would be protected.

Friday morning dawned fresh and bright. The burst of rain the previous evening had washed our city clean. But it did not take long before the next bit of bad news came along. Jonti had been coughing incessantly the last days and had gone to get himself examined on Friday morning. His chest congestion was so severe that he was immediately hospitalized.

‘But what if he has COVID?’ All his symptoms were very similar to those of COVID.  I was in absolute panic. Jonti lived in our house, if he tested positive for COVID, we would all have to go on compulsory isolation for some time. Our home would be sealed. There would be no question of my being able to host a public meeting on Saturday evening.  We would have to cancel the event – there was no doubt about that.

I began to draft the Press note which we would have to send out immediately to announce the cancellation. This was too short notice. There was no other way to do it. But the first RAT test report came in – it was negative. That was a huge relief, thank God! Of course it meant that Jonti would not be there to help us with the organization, but still, we did not need to cancel the event. But I still kept worrying – what if the PCR test report came positive? What would we do then? That would be even more short notice. Oh God, please help!

'Why did you invite Prof. Barua to the meeting, that too, to give away the awards? Do you not know that he is a traitor to Assamese society? How could you invite such a person?'

This remark was made by one of the people who I had gone to invite. 'We shall certainly not attend your meeting if Prof. Barua comes,' the person continued. I had heard similar remarks from a few others. 

But most people were very happy that Prof. Barua was coming. 'Prof. Barua has been invited to give away the awards because of his personal connection with my father. He will represent my father at the meeting. What his political views are are quite irrelevant to this purely literary gathering. He will come to the meeting and give away the awards. You can decide whether you want to come or not.' 

I stood firm. But later some friends advised me to inform the local police station that Prof. Barua was coming. Just in case some trouble mongers try to disturb the meeting. Since the elections were just around the corner, the situation was a little more tense than usual. I had more than enough to do and could have done without having to spend time at a police station hours before the meeting, but decided that I should heed good advice. Luckily the meeting passed off peacefully.

Two of the volunteers were supposed to help out with the award presentation on stage. They were bright college students, but when I asked them what they would wear it turned out that they had very brightly coloured mekhela sadors. ‘Ours is a solemn event. It would be more seemly if the two of you wore somewhat subdued colours.’ But where would they get dresses in subdued colours so close to the event – I offered to give them two of my mekhela-sador sets to wear. ‘You will have to organize the blouses to match; please make sure they don’t have plunging necklines,’ I added. ‘We should all look decent on stage on the day, okay?’ They understood and were beautifully dressed for the occasion the next day. Not just that, they also did a splendid job of the award presentations. The two boy volunteers took charge of the sanitisers, the mask-distribution and the attendance register, and did a very good job of that too.

Saturday morning dawned. Tithi called to say that she had sprained her back that morning and was lying flat in bed, in acute pain. She would not be able to come…well… that meant redistributing responsibilities… Bodhi took charge of the cash, Gunada would help out with the book sales. Basanta would do the transport instead of Jonti… We would manage somehow, but only as long as we did not get the news that Jonti had tested positive. That could come any minute…. And if and when that came we would have to cancel everything.

We went early to buy fresh flowers for the bouquets as well as for the hall decoration. But who would do the flowers? Everyone who was there tried to help, but somehow it did not seem right. Mercifully at that moment, Hema appeared as if from the skies and everything fell in place within minutes.  Next worry was what I should wear.  I had more or less decided what I wanted to wear much earlier, but having to give some of my clothes to the volunteers had upset my plans a little. But soon I settled upon something plain and simple. Another worry was the hall-decoration. Why was the banner still not there? Why were all the gamochas not ironed? Where were the sarais? Were they all polished? And just as if I had not enough to do, I got a call from Aradhana at 1 p.m. requesting me to get her a printout of her speech for the evening! That had me momentarily in a tizzy, momentarily. But soon a way was found.  Then there were a million other worries –  Would Prof. Barua have trouble climbing onto the tall vehicle that had been sent to pick him up? Would our principal guests be on time? What if they got stuck in traffic? Would there be enough people in the audience? Would the books due to be released arrive on time? How would the speeches go? How would we manage to keep time? Would the snacks and tea arrive on time? So many worries…

No wonder I was having that dreadful headache – just out of pure tension caused by worrying about so many things. ‘Ma’am, the trouble with people like you is that you are not satisfied with just getting a job done, it has to be done in exactly the way you want it, and that complicates things, for even if others offer to help, they often have no idea what you really want them to do,’ my student who was watching me busily exchange the red roses for yellow ones on stage observed. He was right. Control freaks like me are doomed to worry, and worry about everything and anything, sometimes needlessly, sometimes about things beyond one’s control, sometimes about things that not important, and sometimes about things that are completely hypothetical – in the ‘what if…’ category, like Jonti’s COVID positive test report that never came…

In the end, most things turned out just fine… … and the few things that could have gone better were things that I could have done nothing to improve… many friends helped in many different ways... The stage looked beautiful; the young awardees spoke from their hearts; Prof. Barua gave an amazing speech which was compellingly powerful --  keeping to his brief, he spoke only about my father and his relation to literature; more than a hundred people came to the event; the food was good;  we managed to finish on time. Many newspapers carried the news the next morning; one newspaper had a photo of the awardees with our honoured guests, only I was missing in that photo. When I asked them why, they jokingly replied, ‘You would have looked better if you did not have a mask on. With a mask covering most of your face no one would know who you are, so we left you out!’ 

So much for following the COVID protocol like a true law-abiding citizen!