A for anticipation of the unknown, B for blurred idea of privacy, C for collapse of the health system — the ABCs of life changed overnight last year. Since the first lockdown, the faculty members and students of Borivali’s School of Environment and Architecture (SEA) started having discussions on how the pandemic will leave a permanent mark on our lives. “But we were trapped in our houses and could only tell our own stories. It reminded one of what Salman Rushdie wrote in Midnight’s Children: ‘It is like watching a film with your cheeks touching the screen — what one can see is only one pixel’,” shares urbanist, architect and professor Rupali Gupte. They realised that the only way to make sense of the changing reality was to document individual stories. Two hundred people from SEA then set out to capture the way existing practices changed and new values emerged, thanks to the invisible virus. The result: Covid Glossary, a dictionary-cum-virtual-exhibition of these stories.

Balcony shenanigans