It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming! It is actually a ‘they’ and they should be ready soon, they should be here soon, they should be with us imminently (or as Americans would say, ‘momentarily’, meaning not fleetingly but within moments), they are almost there, they are competing to see which one can be ready first, which one packs the most punch, the least side-swipe, the cheapest price-tag, the lowest high-maintenance in terms of transport, temperature and other assorted to-do. They are competing; like runners in a heat; except the sprinter in lane one wins in one country, while the medium distance runner in lane three continues onward and wins in another continent! Oh, look, we have one of our own that’s entered the fray — the testing is incomplete, the sampling is on a wing and a prayer, but the authorities say it works variously between 110 and 200 per cent, and we always, always trust the authorities, so it becomes part of the ‘they’ and surges forward in an atma-udhar kind of way! Aayo rey, aayo rey, aayo reyyy, vaccine aayo rey, aayo rey, aayo rey!

Aayo, yes, but not so fast. Wait. First, the frontline folks in February. The masses maybe in March. In the meantime, as we wait, each phone call we make gives us the new recorded mantra: don’t listen to rumours, don’t listen to doubters! The home-made vaccine is fully tested, effective and safe! Take it at once when available! Dawai bhi, kadai bhi! Wait, what? Medicine also, cooking vessel also? No, no, no! Then... medicine also, embroidery also? Uff, no! Kadai = kadak = strict caution, as in kadi nazar, that is, baleful eagle eye! Oh, right, okay, at least that part of the message is correct — taking the vaccine will not mean the end of protection protocols and vigilance.

While waiting we see we are hardly one-some in the vaudeville of vaccine vacillations: the United Kingdom is finally doing well with giving the shots — but it’s not! The vaccines may not cover the new strains; Europe displays all sorts of lottery games and Russian roulette-type clownery; in the post-Trump United States of America, the Liar-in-Chief’s complete lack of planning, in fact anti-planning, has not only resulted in over five lakh deaths but is leading to further chaos: each state has its own rules as to who can get the shot and where, and many states are chopping and changing those rules to add to the chaos — yes, this could only happen in America.

Finally, March 1 dawns over Calcutta and the two heroes arrive in town, like Thomson and Thompson, or Goopy and Bagha, or Jagai and Madhai. The government hospitals are giving shots, the private hospitals are giving shots, there is a website on which there is a long list; you can get it free, you can pay for it, you can get the Covaxin aka Ram Bharosey or rather Harsh Bharosey or you can get Covishield, which is more Vigyan Bharosey. How to get it? Well, you have to be over 60, or over 45 with a certified comorbidity. Wealthy people start to do things they have never done before, such as enter government hospitals; Calcuttans do what Indians have always done, such as get their doc to do fake comorbidity certificates and bingo, shot lag gaya!

Some of us stay on the straight and narrow and go to the website. It is impressive. There are buttons; there are instructions as to what to do with the buttons; there is the beaming visage of the First Servant of the country — why? Don’t ask, don’t say dawai bhi meri aur badhai bhi meri — just click on the buttons as instructed. Okay, so click on the ‘Register’ button. Impressive, three blank slots asking for state, borough, pin code. You fill the slots from the drop-down choices. Nothing happens. An hour later, same thing. Another 40 minutes later, the clicked choices fill the slots and a list of dispensing hospitals and clinics unfurls down. Wow, they even have two separate hyperlinks for some hospitals, one specifically labelled Covaxin, the other one presumably for the pesky Doubting Thomases who want Covishield. Okay, click on the latter. Blank weekly time slots open up, with tiny fine print above which says ‘no appointments are available for this period’, okay click on the next week, again the same, nothing till the end of March. A friend in Delhi, using the same website, has already made bookings for eight seniors in their family, but that’s Delhi, typical NCR privilege. In Calcutta, the website is as unforgiving as the Indian Railways one when it’s captured by web-touts.

After two days of web-wrestling, a friend says, “Just come to X-Vue Hospital by 8.30, they are taking walk-ins!” So, on a hot morning we find ourselves in a queue outside X-Vue, one of the city’s poshest hospitals, two of us 60-plus and one who will turn 60 in a month and therefore, according to the regulations of the government of India, eligible for the shot. The whole thing is a mess, people are jostling, many are not masked, some take them off and put them on like they are goggles or necklaces, the line moves slowly, leading into a dark hallway that is even more crowded. One of us decides to check out an alternative clinic and taxis off. He is back in 30 minutes to find the friends more or less where he left them. What happened? Oh, that place is even worse!

After a while, the friend who’s not yet 60 is told she cannot be registered. She argues but, being civilized, gives up despite being in the right and goes off, cursing the wasted time. Other upper-middle-class denizens of this patch of South Kol are not quite so bhadra and a huge fight breaks out around the registration desk. People are shouting in each other’s faces, masks are being waved like lethal weapons, spittle is flying everywhere, screams of “Shut up! No you shut up!” reverberate off the ceiling. Finally, registration is achieved and a time slot received. At the appointed hour, we crowd into an elevator, half the people unmasked or with masks at half-mast, noses poking out innocently as if to say, “Who me, sir? I am just nose, sir! I have nothing to do with all this!”

In less fancy hospitals the waiting rooms have open windows and fans spinning on full. Here, in the lap of luxury, these eighth-floor windows are sealed with locks and the AC is on full blast, in desi defiance of the fact that the virus loves crowds in closed air-conditioned rooms. Perfect. Names are called, payments received and due diligence questions asked before you are sent to the poke-station. I ask the nurse if I can see the actual vaccine bottle and she snaps at me, “It’s Covishield! Do you think we are lying?” “No, ma’am, no! I just wanted to do darshan of this deity one has been praying to for so long!” The jab hurts badly. When I check with my friends, they all say it hurt, so I know it wasn’t personal. Now I’m looking forward to the second date.