Sigmund Freud sat down to write, as was his practice, the case history of a patient he had treated that morning. For privacy he needed a pseudonym for the patient and the name Dora came into his mind. It was the name of his sister; he preferred a different name. Still, the name Dora kept popping in his mind. Freud, being Freud, then set about exploring why that was happening.
 
He recalled a months-old event. He visited his sister and, while waiting in the living room, saw a letter on the center table. It caught his attention, for the letter was for a Dora, but the last name was not his sister’s. current or premarital name. He asked his sister who gave a curious explanation. She and her husband had engaged a new maid six months earlier who had the same name as her, Dora.  Since the same name for the maid and mistress would cause confusion, she agreed in that household to go by a different name. Freud saw the connection readily: in writing the case history of a person whose real name could not be used for reasons of privacy, his mind was automatically coming up with the name of a person, the maid, whose real name had to be suppressed in favor of a pseudonym.
 
You don’t have to be a psychologist to notice the strange ways that our mind can work. I remember something curious that happened to me. I was preparing for a speech for the Rotary Club and wanted to use an example from Somerset Maugham’s novel Theater, in which a famous middle-aged actress is besotted with a young accountant. I could not recall the name of the actress, however hard I tried, and was flabbergasted that a weird word kept surfacing in my mind, “Beaconsfield.” It took me a little while to figure out that I had earlier been reading Andre Maurois’s fascinating biography of British premier Disraeli. The French novelist dwelled heavily on the romance of socialite Mary Ann Evans, Viscountess Beaconsfield, who was fifteen years older than Disraeli but loved and married him.
 
I suspect that psychologists will, in fact, have difficulty explaining the mysterious ways the human mind moves – as William Cowper said of God – to perform its wonders. I recall an interview in which philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked how he solved problems. Russell replied that he never tried to solve any problems. Heavens, how did he then solve the great problems of mathematics and philosophy? The old man laughed and said that, when he encountered a problem, he went and took a long shower. An answer somehow popped in his mind. His method was to cogitate on an issue and then simply leave it to his mind to come up with an answer.

​I thought I would give the method a tryout. Since I write regular columns for newspapers and magazines, and I am always in search of new ideas, I decided that I would start a column and then go and take a shower. As a kid I liked walking in a drizzle and as an adult I like no less to stand under a running showerhead. There are few things more relaxing than a long, warm shower, and, when I emerged, I found the next several paragraphs ready in my mind. It worked like magic.
 
I have since discovered another option. I find that, if I start a column at night and go to sleep, the next morning I wake with several new ideas that help my progress. I have to do no more than just let my mind dwell on the chosen theme for a few minutes, perhaps as I brush my teeth or pop vitamin pills, and I wake the next morning with unexpected, sparkling-new ideas. Sometimes the ideas are so new that I have to abandon my original idea of the essay and take a new track.
 
Why does this work? Neurologist Barry Gordon says that our mind is a reservoir of many ideas and we are not aware of most of them. They float around, subconscious, seldom recognized. When an idea gains force on its own or is churned by an event, the ‘full beam of consciousness’ centers on it and we become attentive. When I relax, either in a shower stall or on a comfortable bed, I am taking advantage of the rich bank of subterranean ideas that are already circulating in my mind. They have been built up over the years by what I have read or heard, learned or experienced, deduced or inferred.
 
Not everybody is writing a column and has to find a way to beat the deadline. But everyone can make use of new or novel ideas. Ideas are precious. The seeds of such ideas often lie dormant within us, hidden and unknown. Just waiting to be mobilized by the magic touch of a curious but relaxed mind – just like a sleeping beauty waiting to be roused from unending sleep by a princely kiss.

Friendship is hard to forget. Affection is hard to live without.
 
I wrote about my friend Sam two years back. Sam was an earnest man, dedicated to his work, always on the run, impatient to achieve what he had set his heart on.
 
The article ended with this:
 
“I was accidentally at the project office window one afternoon when I observed the strange arc of Sam’s car as he dashed typically to another downtown appointment. Sam was an excellent driver, and that reckless curve was bizarre.
 
I rushed out and found the car stalled on the sidewalk, Sam’s large frame sprawled on the steering wheel, motionless. Ominously, even the Rolex on his drooping wrist was still. My best friend, always in a hurry, had finally slowed down.”
 
I thought that was the end. It wasn’t.

Last night, after so many years, I dreamed of Sam.
 
He was his usual busy, brusque person, keen on achieving something he had in his constantly whirling mind.
 
I looked at him as he appeared on my door and I pressed his big hand. I said, with great feeling, “I have missed you, Sam.”
 
I had indeed missed his eager face, always full of optimism and spirit.
 
He just said, “I understand,” and then quickly added, “We have lots to do.”
 
I said, “Sam, those things can wait. I want to tell you how much I have longed to see you again.”
 
He just looked at me quizzically. As if he didn’t understand why I was saying this.

I said, “Don’t you understand? Maybe I never told you. You are an important part of my life. How important I didn’t know. But now I know. When you were not with me, I missed you acutely.”
 
He seemed almost embarrassed by my sentimentality. But perhaps he was also touched.
 
He said, “But now I am here. We can be together.”
 
“I am so happy to see you. So very happy.”
 
He just nodded.
 
I added, “Sam, we have been working together all these days and months. We talk only of schedules and deadlines. Maybe we should sometimes talk of something else too. You have been a good friend. You mean a lot to me. I feel you are hell-bent on our project. I admire that, but I also feel concerned. I believe you should take better care of yourself.”
 
Then I paused and asked, “Why are you panting, Sam?”
 
He was a big and heavy man. When he panted, it showed.
 
“Oh, the elevator in your building wasn’t working for some reason this morning.”
 
“So, you walked up all these eight floors?” I lived in a high-rise building.
 
If I knew Sam, he wouldn’t walk, he would run. He was an impatient man.
 
“Yes. But I am all right.”
 
“You are not. You are panting.”
 
“No, no. I am all right.”
 
Then he paused and said, “Let me use your bathroom.”
 
I pointed. The door closed. The next moment I heard him retching. The climb, especially his breathless run, had been too much for him, though he wouldn’t admit it.
 
Then the bathroom door opened, and I saw his ashen face. He wasn’t feeling well.
 
“Sam!” I cried out, anxious.
 
I quickly went up to hold his arm. The next moment I felt him collapsing, his legs giving way. I had a moment of panic, for I couldn’t sustain his heavy weight.
 
The next moment I woke up.
 
A thin ray of light was intruding through the curtains of my bedroom. It took me a few minutes to realize I was dreaming. My eyes were wet.
 
I had indeed missed Sam.
 
Friendship is hard to forget. Affection is hard to live without.

​In fact, it was more than a month that I spent in Kolkata. It wasn’t easy to start with. I had to be awake precisely the time I sleep in Washington and I walked around like a zombie for a few days. Friends were gracious enough to overlook my fading voice and vacant look.
 
The air took a few more days. The acrid air literally took my breath away. I gratefully accepted the offer of a mask, but using it seemed like a Sisyphean ordeal. I not only looked like Darth Vader, I felt like a dog on a leash. I decided to brave the oncoming waves of airborne pollution like a patriotic martyr.
 
The streets took even more days. An annual visitor, I wanted to walk around, see things for myself, watch the people, explore the stores. The city seemed determined to present itself as an obstacle course. The sidewalks are broken, uneven, studded with cracks and cavities; where repaired, the repairman seems to have laid traps for unwary heels. Home and shop owners clearly have the right to break the sidewalk and reshape their front-yard.
 
All this is where the sidewalk exists. Mostly it doesn’t exist at all. Largely it has become a shopping arcade, vending snacks and sweets, books and bangles, tea and trinkets. If there were a tiny gap between the shops, where a pedestrian could walk, small vendors have spread their wares and hawk pencils to panties. In this town, you don’t walk, you negotiate quick turns between stalls.
 
When I visit India, my usual stints in Delhi and Mumbai invariably include lodging with my two brothers. I can’t think of alternatives. They are kind hosts and warm company. In Kolkata, I stayed often with an old friend who combined hospitable hosting with considerate allowance of space. This time I chose a bed-and-breakfast place that too offered a remarkable combination: a large, quiet place with a lively coffee shop and a popular restaurant. I had a noiseless room – as noiseless as it ever can be in a raucous town – with a couple of animated meeting places.
 
The last brought an unexpected advantage. An Uber or Ola cab was never more than five minutes away. I had always thought of not having my car with me as a handicap; now I saw it as a great benefit. What could be better than having a vehicle accessible at any hour, without having to drive it? I could be anywhere in the city for the princely sum of a dollar or two.
 
I tipped heavily, if only for the refreshing exchanges with the chauffeurs. One or two may have been taciturn, but the rest spoke volubly, spiritedly, of their speedy urban life and the contrasting quiet of their village, usually in backwater Bihar. One spoke disgustedly and comically of the bank officer who lent him money to buy his taxi and another impressed me with the devotion to his purblind mother whom he feeds by hand every night. My favorite was the driver’s tale who defied his adamant family and married the winsome lass from another caste who had caught his eye in a village fair. Google’s self-driving cars and Tesla’s electric vehicles may one day save the world a lot of gasoline and environmental havoc, but I will miss these spirited storytellers who made a performing art out of a prosaic trip.

I attended events of many kinds, social and cultural. All seemed well-attended, people who attended seemed enthusiastic. And all served a lot of food. If they started late, they tarried long, and even memorial meetings smacked of joie de vivre. If daily living in the town is harder than in some western cities, the events possibly are occasions for people to loosen their belts and savor the fun of being together. I saw the modern version of a fifth-century Sanskrit play and was thrilled that the theater world of Kolkata – to which I owe my abiding love of drama – remains as vibrant as ever.
 
I have to confess that, for someone from a Washington suburb, Kolkata is a difficult place despite many improvements. Filth repels. Unpainted, unrepaired old houses displease the eye; ugly new buildings are a growing eyesore. Traffic is chaotic and cacophonous. Anybody like me, who grew up in Kolkata and experienced its invincible charm, finds its overpasses and shopping malls scant compensation for its old-world seductiveness.
 
Stubbornly, I return to Kolkata for an annual pilgrimage, bypassing the call of Venice, Paris, Rio or Dublin. Of course, I want to see my friends, many of whom, alas, have moved to another city or another world. I cherish the ones who remain. They are a memento of the past that has vanished and the affection that has survived. Whatever we shared has narrowed, but whatever we loved has broadened. I acquire, too, new friends, who bring a new dimension to my understanding of the land of my birth.
 
But, strangely, even beyond friends and relations, there is something in the city that I cannot turn away from. It stays with me, it pursues me. It is a daemon, a supernatural spirit that is now intertwined with my flesh and bones. Beyond all reason, it pervades my being and draws my body to its muddy, murky shores. The further I go, the longer stretches its grubby arms, its tentacles go deeper in my frame, its aroma lingers, its images haunt my dreams. No wonder a poet, as dear to me as the city, wrote:

Calcutta if you must exile me wound my lips before I go
only words remain and the gentle touch of your fingers on my lips.

​For a law-abiding person I have spent a fair amount of time behind bars – visiting prisoners and making sure of their humane treatment.
 
Suddenly, the world over, we are prisoners in our home. We are asked not to cross the threshold except for a critical need. Some of us who live alone have nobody to talk to and feel in solitary confinement, the worst punishment for prisoners. Others who live with their spouses or family members have suddenly too much of their company and feel a stress worse than that of solitary incarceration.
 
Victor Frankl, an Austrian psychologist, was in a worse kind of prison. As a Jew, the Nazis confined him in Theresienstadt ghetto and later in the Auschwitz death camp. He observed three kinds of reaction among prisoners. First, people had a shock, to be suddenly deprived of their normal life. Second, apathy, as people grew used to their misery and deprivation. Last, depersonalization, as they lost their identity and dignity, concerned only with their animal survival, abandoned hope and eked a bitter existence. The ones who survived were those with hope, clinging to their humanity and a lingering trust in goodness and concern for others.
 
Though imprisoned, Frankl felt himself free in important ways, free to think, free to help other prisoners every little way he could, and free, above all, to do what every person can do: choose to make his own decision even in the most horrible situation. He felt himself freer than his armed German guard, imprisoned in his Nazi allegiance, his brutal ways, his horrid hatred of Jews.
 
It is an astounding story. A moment’s thought tells us what confines and imprisons us most. Not an unfortunate situation, not our lack of resources or social contacts, not even a fearful pandemic, but our dearth of faith in anything, the lack of meaning or purpose in our life. We have nothing to look forward to, because we believe in nothing that surpasses our petty orbit. No calamity can take away our ultimate freedom to choose how we want to react to it. Bow to it in abject surrender or face it with a resolute mind.
 
The Buddhists have a telling phrase. What imprisons a tiger are not the steel bars of its cage, but the spaces between them. We are often circumscribed less by our material limitations than by our mental conditioning.

​We are so stuck in our ways that we never review our life and our views. We seldom know whether we are going northeast or southwest, until we are lost in a forest and bring out the compass to check. But it is never too late, as Thoreau used to say, to shed our prejudices.
 
We are hopelessly shaped and burnished by our social context. Thoreau’s suggestion was to leave that context, at least change it in some radical way. Without your accustomed ways, your familiar lanes and by-lanes, you will feel lost, and that will force you to bring out your compass – your basic values – and willy-nilly find a new direction. As long as you are comfortable in the cocoon of your habits, you will never surge for a new horizon. The good will continue to be the enemy of the better or the best.
 
The truth is we know amazingly little of ourselves. Because we know others know less about us, we are tempted to believe, in comparison, that we have a fair knowledge of ourselves. It is only when a key event occurs, or we encounter a special person or undergo a head-turning experience, that we realize some new aspect of our personality of which we had no inkling. We know little of our talents, our urges, our hidden abilities, even our cherished, long-lost childhood dreams. We have only the most elementary idea of what kind of a person we are.
 
Thoreau left his urban home and went into woods, to live at Walden Pond, chopping his own wood and cooking his modest meals, so that a simple life could let him see clearly what he could not see in his daily city life, surrounded by the accustomed and convenient. He came, as his classic book shows, face to face with himself, understanding his world and his place in it.
 
We don’t need to repair to the woods, for we have now a remarkable opportunity to quarantine ourselves, cut ourselves from our normal life, its many conveniences and tempting distractions, its infinite capacity to blindfold us and make us miss the thousand pitfalls of the life we lead. We are so enamored of comfort that we are ready to sell our soul for it, to replace genuine friendship with spurious Facebook intimacy, to exchange our smart phone and television serial for a meaningful look at the only life we will ever have.
 
The coronavirus has wrecked our economy, killed our friends and driven a ruthless broadsword through our society, but it may also have opened a secret door – if we would care to walk through it.

I am told the pandemic is raging in nearly two hundred countries, except the least visited isles like Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu and Marshall Islands.
 
Suddenly my only company is, unbelievably, just me. I am by myself, dawn to dusk, mostly in my home. The occasional exception is a walk through the woods. I visit nobody and nobody visits me. The current crisis makes us all potential carriers of a virus, and we are advised to stay by ourselves. Most stay home, except the doltish few who enjoy the adventure of breaking a rule. Or the credulous many who seek the collective solace of a temple, mosque or church. It is not clear why, when the almighty has amply blessed us all with a blight, he would quixotically exempt a few faithful.
 
When it started, the seclusion seemed like a pleasant change, like an unexpected vacation. No rush to work every morning, no waiting for a weekend respite. Every day is a holiday. Even those who have to work online felt the onset on a relaxed schedule. The newness began to pall in a few days. Friends called and spoke of their confinement with impatience. Acquaintances who don’t usually call called to chat and to express their hope for an early release. I suspect they hoped to hear an optimistic word, but I had none. I understood their itch for I feel it myself.
 
I don’t know how long I need to be with myself. It may turn out to be the longest period in my life when I have lived virtually alone. I had once spent ten days without speaking, but that does not count at all. I was in a group of other people who were doing the same and we had the silent company of others. This may be an extended period of flying solo, not just without talking to others face-to-face but also without fraternization of any kind.
 
I am a moderately social person, and this does not come easily to me. But I am beginning to see why this may not be a fruitless experience.
 
When I did not speak for over a week, I experienced, I believe for the first time, the true value of speaking. We speak not just to call a cab or order a sandwich, nor even chat with a colleague, but essentially to establish a link with another person. Most of the time that does not happen. That does mean that is not the real purpose of speaking. It only means we don’t remember the real purpose and use it only for secondary purposes. The real end of a conversation, even when it appears as a mere exchange of trivial information, is to start or sustain a genuine nexus between two humans, even where the other person is a cab driver or a sandwich server. Much the same way as I glimpse the value of words when I edit my own writing and find my mistakes, I found in that retreat how not to speak – however often I fail that standard.

When I am isolated from others for two to six weeks – still hoping that it would not continue beyond that – perhaps I will see the real meaning of true interaction. Surely there is in life a place for frivolous conversation or social talk at a cocktail party. There is too a respectable place for lighthearted engagement, whose only purpose is diversion, the pleasure of being with another person I care for or who cares for me. But, when all interaction is taboo, you begin to understand how important it is to tell others in your life how important they are to you, what a huge contribution they make to your daily existence, what significance they give to your place in the universe. It is amazing how the most important things go unsaid. I have sometimes pondered if I have ever told a daughter or a close friend the most critical thing I would have liked to tell them – and have seldom come up with a happy answer.

​Not just talking with others or interacting with friends and family. We learn something when those are denied us. But there is something more to be learned from living with ourselves. Thoreau, the American I most admire and about whom most Americans seem to know nothing, eloquently urged that we give ourselves a chance, by removing ourselves from the comfortable milieu that has imprisoned us for years. Suddenly a pandemic has opened – not closed – the door and given us an incredible opportunity.
 
You need isolation to think. A person alone could be a thinking person; a person thinking is invariably alone. You need solitude, but solitude is measured not by yards or miles, but by the space you place between you and ‘others’ – people or things. Alone, you don’t have to please others or think about what others think of you. You just can be you. There is no companion as companionable as yourself.
 
Solitude is a state of mind than a physical state. But when the physical situation imitates that state of mind, the world is giving you a great opportunity to break out of your bubble and ask yourself the questions you have avoided for a long time, maybe a lifetime. It may be your only chance in life to face who you are, what you are – beside being just a teacher, a mother, a doctor, a husband, a clerk, a daughter, a whatever insignificant or grand. The only chance to be a safe, sane, sound island that has finally found itself.