Of Late Alarms, Long Queues, and Online Attendances: My Experiences of COVID Time

This essay has three autoethnographic, interconnected, temporal vignettes that narrate my lived pandemic experiences of mothering a teenage daughter, performing socially isolated housework, and teaching online classes. These personal experiences are located in specific Indian contexts through thick descriptions that accommodate more massive perspectives. Adapting Sarah Sharma’s concepts of power-chronography and temporal politics, I problematize my COVID-enforced slow time, and explore more deeply how my fraught COVID time experiences intersect with the multiple COVID times of others. I use this methodological format—autoethnography, thick description, and theorization—to make sense of my pandemic experiences at both microscopic and massive levels.