Leave the World Behind: In Rumaan Alam's apocalyptic narrative, finding reflections of a personal crisis
Rumaan Alam writes of a world which one is thrown into without caution, and expected to not only coexist but also find meaning in an involuntary collective experience.
Sayantan Ghosh
January 23, 2021 09:51:06 IST
Rumaan Alam’s book deals with major themes of race, climate change, parenting, greed and, of course, the Armageddon
Exactly a month ago my grandmother, my father’s mother, was still alive. When she contracted the coronavirus
in September, she spent a few weeks in the ICU of a hospital in Kolkata where her health deteriorated rapidly. Even after testing negative, there was barely any improvement in her physical state as the virus had somehow drastically affected her aging heart. Although something miraculous happened, and in a final battle against mortality she showed immense zeal and grit, turning things around for herself, and our family — at least for a brief while. She returned home from the hospital, and spent her last two months there with my parents, trying her best to recover. The drugs made her memory fade away slowly but when I visited home from Delhi to see her, she touched my hand and said, “I can’t remember your name right now but I have known you for a long time.” On the early morning of 25 December 2020, she decided that’s it, and went away to celebrate Christmas elsewhere with the many people she had known and loved before us, including hopefully, my grandfather.