The End Doesn't Happen All at Once : A Pandemic Memoir

In March 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic ruptured and changed the world around them forever two friends decided to write to each other a series of what turned out to be intensely vulnerable letters. In <i>The End Doesn’t Happen All at</i> Once Chi Rainer Bornfree and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan—academics writers activists and above all friends—lay bare their lives in what might be considered in their words ‘durational performance art’. <i>The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once</i> is a ‘Covid book’ but in many ways it’s more than that. It examines the pandemic in the words of Arundhati Roy as a possible ‘portal’ into a different world. In their letters C and R grapple with coming to terms with the new social reality of the catastrophe turned commonplace while looking for ways to reimagine a new more just world. As vaccinated writer-parents living in the United States they candidlydiscuss privilege—others’ and their own—and the rhetoric around it. In their correspondence painful self-examination exists simultaneously with a review of the world. While they ponder how social isolation might turn us ‘more ourselves’ for better or for worse they do not turn away from political realities: from Narendra Modi’s announcement of the March 2020 lockdown in India and the ensuing chaos; to the election of Joe Biden and Trumpists’ attack on the US Capitol Building in 2021. They talk about the systemic collapse in India as well as the US government’s various failures around racism healthcare gun violence abortion laws and the climate crisis.<br><br>As friends of each other’s adulthood they also talk at length about their hopes and anxieties regarding their personal and professional lives. C and R describe their relationships with ‘parents partners progeny’ with honesty and humour. They relay to each other the strains and joys of their respective conjugal lives during social isolation the stories and photographs of their children and the tiffs with their in-laws and parents. <br><br>The book doesn’t just record the end of the before-times but also documents the world’s return to normal. As the lockdowns and mandates were lifted Chi and Ragini wrote their way from ‘the portal’ into ‘the woods’. <i>The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once</i> is not just a relic of some of the world’s darkest times but also a testament to the transformative power of friendship during crisis full of hope for humanity at large.