Sanitization practices

Vastavikta Bhagat

We at SEA believe that the pandemic has a granularity of meta, non-linear narratives that become useful in making sense of the relational complexities of the pandemic and society. Thus, we set out to collect stories of fears, joys, agilities, fragilities, friendships, networks, collectives, home, work, infrastructures, entrepreneurship, privileges, marginalizations, migrations, desperation, gender, equity, etc. The glossary as a method became useful to reflect on this granularity of experiences and account for slippages during these times. These spatio-temporal stories, when read together or as individual instances produce a new sense of the emergent contemporary. This framework also allows us to speculate on the kind of world we will inhabit once the storm has passed. We draw on multiple readings to bring out the nuances and patterns of social life produced in a pandemic. This we hope would allow us to collectively reflect on the restructured ideas of the self, the collective, society, space, and time. Intense instances of sanitization from migrant labor being sprayed with disinfectants on highways to meticulous washing of all surfaces within homes every 4 hours, these practices even though inhumane became commonplace.

As the lockdown was declared, people started hoarding groceries and the groceries had to be sanitized once they were home. All the packets had to be sanitized. And once while sanitizing a packet of salt. The sanitizer went inside the packet and instead of just the packet being sanitized the whole salt was sanitized.

Phone..wallet..umm...haan yes sanitizer. A feeling of security amidst the chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic, an easy escape from that longhand washing trip to the washroom, and an absolute necessity. You can arrange a phone charger from somewhere but stepping out without a sanitizer? No can’t do that. Keeps paranoia and mothers with sharp noses at bay. (Got this epiphany that it could be a deo as well! Use it judiciously after your smoke breaks)

DISINFECTANT CLOUD

Soon after the lockdown was announced in early 2020, white clouds of disinfectant descended onto our streets and lanes. March, April, May are also a time of the mosquitoes - and grey vans ventured out into the city leaving behind tufts of fluffy, white, opaque fog. But these are not odorless clouds. After each "cloud shower" a clean, sterile, sanitized smell wafts into homes within seconds. Burning eyes, titillating skin. During the peak of covid, this shower of sanitized molecules was the reassurance of what remains sanitized in this world- in what remains clean, untouched, and disinfected.

In hot and dry Ahmedabad, these white clouds of sanitizer spray and mosquito repellents are the closest things to witnessing fog or cloudy weather! For a few moments, it is as if the city transports itself to cooler climes and the world emerges clinically new and sanitized.

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