Sunday, September 6, 2020
Opinion: The Strange Grief of Losing My Sense of TasteMany symptoms of Covid-19 were difficult, but losing my ability to taste hurt the most.
By Krista Diamond
Earlier in the pandemic, my husband and I developed a ritual of ordering comfort food every Friday. We live in Las Vegas — a city that has been hit hard by the virus — and found meals from beloved local restaurants to be small but crucial gifts in a glittering landscape that was losing its luster. In March, my husband was laid off from a casino, and I lost a majority of my clients as a freelance writer. In June, the Strip reopened to unmasked tourists drunk on margaritas and the falsehood of a world without disease. By August, we were sick.
Unable to get out of bed days later, I sent out a tweet bemoaning Covid-19. Someone replied, “Whatever you do, don’t Google ‘When will I get my smell and taste back.’” I did exactly that and was met with article after article about anosmia — smell blindness — many of which suggested its impact could be long-term.
My existing symptoms worsened while new ones appeared: body aches, paralyzing nausea, 12-hour headaches, difficulty breathing and exhaustion that lingered like a hangover. But despite the physical pain of the illness, losing my ability to taste hurt the most. For months before I got the virus, I was locked inside my house. I saw friends and family through my computer screen. I watched the lights of downtown Las Vegas flicker off from my bedroom window. I felt the heartbeat of my career flatline.
Throughout this sea change, my only sense of joy was the taste of food. The red velvet cake I ate on my birthday in lieu of a canceled California vacation. The balsamic roasted brussels sprouts I cooked after I lost another client. The spicy bourbon fried chicken from the sun-drenched cafe where I used to read on leisurely Sundays.
Las Vegas is a city-centered around pleasure, and so much of that pleasure is taste — the bright citrus of champagne, the brine of fresh oysters, the impossible luxury of Kobe beef. And what is Las Vegas without pleasure? A desert.
The ability to taste was my connection to life before the coronavirus. And suddenly it was — and still is — gone.
My first week without taste and smell, I searched constantly for flashes of my lost senses. I sniffed candles, opened leftovers in my refrigerator, buried my face in my dog’s fur in search of that puppy smell. Even spoonfuls of hot sauce, pinches of salt, amounted to nothing. I worried — if I ate spoiled food, would I know? If there was a gas leak in my house, would it kill me?
In desperation, I turned to a Facebook group for people with Covid-19 experiencing smell and taste loss. It had more than 5,000 members.
“Today marks exactly 5 months since losing my taste/smell completely,” someone reported.
“There is hope,” another said, sharing that she had regained the ability to smell.
Some expressed sadness over seeing friends enjoying meals. Others floated conspiracies — had masks caused this? Many discussed smell training, a method requiring anosmia sufferers to sniff scents like eucalyptus, lemon and rose every day in hopes of turning the memory of them into reality.
Occasionally, someone would celebrate the return of taste and smell only to lose the sensations again or find that they had changed. Suddenly sugar was unbearably sweet, wine intolerably bitter. Phantom scents filled their nostrils — cleaning chemicals, gas.
I read the group’s Facebook posts for hours, commiserating with strangers around the world who shared this one strange loss. In a way, it felt frivolous. After all, many of us have already recovered and will avoid panicking emergency rooms. We will continue to live our lives — even if they are lives where chocolate tastes like chalk and whiskey taste like water.
But what is life without taste, without smell? If I never regain these abilities, will the question “What do you want for dinner” mean anything? Will a nice restaurant still have value? How will it feel when someone cooks for me, watches me take the first bite, and waits for my reaction? What is the point of perfume, of piney mountain air?
In a way, anosmia is the perfect metaphor for the world during Covid-19: devoid of pleasures we didn’t realize we might not always have.
But still, I try. I lift my husband’s shirt to my nose and breathe in. I cook meals — seared ahi tuna, pasta carbonara, strawberry pastries — and eat them, closing my eyes and trying to remember what they taste like.
Each day I hope for the familiar aromas and flavors to come back. I wait like the rest of us, for the things I love to return.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/opinion/coronavirus-covid-symptoms-taste.html
Meet Kanwal Ahmed, Pakistani woman who has given a ‘safe space’ to women to talk about taboos
BISMEE TASKIN
On the Facebook page 'Soul Sisters Pakistan', started by 31-year-old Kanwal Ahmed, several South Asian women discuss topics such as sex, abuse, marriage, and abortion.
Sex, divorce, abortion, domestic violence — these are some of the ‘taboo’ topics that are discussed on ‘Soul Sisters Pakistan’, a women-only online space created by a 31-year-old Pakistani woman, Kanwal Ahmed.
The community page on Facebook has over 2,64,000 members, and women from across South Asia share their experiences, grievances, fears and ambitions in this “safe space”, according to Kanwal, a former makeup artist. She noted that most members of the group are from India and Pakistan.
“It is known how oppressed women of South Asian countries are. No matter what the background is, women are just not able to break the shackles of patriarchy. I created this community so that women can talk about things which they otherwise aren’t supposed to speak about or discuss — sex, divorce, physical and mental abuse, abortion and miscarriage,” Ahmed told ThePrint.
“Pakistani and Indian women are extremely strong, we just don’t have the right spaces, avenues to voice ourselves. It’s unsafe for women to confide in strangers or to take a break from the cumbersome daily lives. I wanted the group to be a place where women really opened up without the fear of being attacked or harassed or judged,” she added.
‘Safe space’ for women to discuss personal problems
Born in Pakistan’s Karachi, Ahmed, who now lives in Canada, got married at the age of 22 and is a mother of a 4-year-old child. She said the need to create a free and safe space for women struck her while she was working as a makeup artist.“I came across women who really needed someone to confide in. As I was growing up, I could see the agony and plight of women, there were live examples around me of those being ill-treated, subjected to different forms of domestic violence. This urged me to create this free space for women so that they can finally speak their heart out,” Ahmed said.
Soul Sisters Pakistan is a closed group on Facebook, with admittance regulated by Ahmed and the members, to ensure that it continues to be a female-only, safe space. It was established in 2013 and over the years has gained a lot of popularity.
In 2018, Ahmed was chosen as one of Facebook’s 115 ‘community leaders’, and received a grant from the social media giant to cultivate her project.
According to Ahmed, her page’s sole purpose is to provide a “safe space” for women to discuss “personal problems” which otherwise go unheard or are deemed “inappropriate and shameful”.“I don’t counsel anyone, I and other women in the group only listen. Listening to someone’s agony soothes them and offers them mental strength,” Kanwal said.Women in the group, who call themselves ‘Soulies’, offer each other emotional and mental support and advice on various issues.
One thread on the page discusses — ‘How many of you changed yourself after marriage? Do you miss what you were before?’. It has over 6,000 comments from members sharing their experiences on marriage and marital relationships.
In another thread, a community member posted about her troubled married life, talking about how she and her husband started having issues within two months of their marriage. The comments section was filled with words of encouragement and support. There are also threads where women post pictures of their hobbies, their artwork and also photography.
Domestic abuse most discussed topic
One of the most discussed topics on the page is domestic abuse — both emotional and physical. Narrating an instance, Ahmed told ThePrint how one of the community members informed the group about her helper’s sister who was being regularly beaten up by her husband.
“The husband had a gun and would shoot in the air if the villagers tried to stop him. The woman was constantly abused. When the topic came up on our platform, another member who had good contacts with the police of another village called them up and reported the incident. The woman was rescued and brought to Karachi,” Ahmed said.
She highlighted how the journey of Soul Sisters Pakistan has also been full of inspiring moments.
“Once a member had told us how she had left her partner and was on her way to become a single parent. She was anxious, worried and paranoid as she didn’t have a job. I remember how the network was filled with messages full of love, so many single mothers came down to share their experiences. Two women even offered her a job.”
Offline events and a talk show
Besides the community page, Ahmed has also hosted offline events where women come and meet each other, make friends and talk about their issues.
“We arrange a sitting for about 500 women in one event. Here, they can confide in one another without having the fear of being judged or being laughed at. Nobody is belittled,” she said. These events were held in Karachi, where she previously lived.
Ahmed also hosts a talk show ‘Conversations with Kanwal’ on YouTube, where she interacts with women and men on various issues ranging from single parenthood, childbirth, pregnancy, emotional abuse, family pressures, female foeticide among many others.
Ahmed says 46 per cent of her audience was Indian and that her series got a “lot of love from India”.
“God bless you aunty… Be happy always. Lots of love from India,” one viewer, Koyela Chakrabarti from India, commented on her YouTube channel, which has over 78,000 subscribers.
“Waiting for a new video. It’s so inspiring, I got goosebumps watching the videos. Love from India,” another user, Shristi Chettri, commented.
https://theprint.in/features/meet-kanwal-ahmed-pakistani-woman-who-has-given-a-safe-space-to-women-to-talk-about-taboos/496857/
گلگت بلتستان الیکشن: بلاول نے امیدواروں کے ورچوئل انٹرویوز لیے
گلگت بلتستان الیکشن کےلیے پیپلز پارٹی کے امیدواروں کے ورچوئل انٹرویوز لیے گئے۔
اعلامیے کے مطابق چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو کی سربراہی میں پیپلز پارٹی کے الیکشن بورڈ نے امیدواروں کے انٹرویوز لیے۔
پیپلز پارٹی کے اعلامیے کے مطابق دوسرے مرحلے میں دیا مر ڈویژن کے ضلع استور کی 2 سیٹوں کےلیے انٹرویوز لیے جائیں گے۔
اعلامیے کے مطابق انٹرویوز کےد وران بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے امیدواروں سے جیت کی صورت میں ترجیحات دریافت کیں۔
بلاول بھٹو نے امیدوارو سے گفتگو میں کہاکہ گلگت بلتستان الیکشن جیت کر پیپلز پارٹی سندھ کی طرز کےاسپتال بنائےگی۔
انہوں نے مزید کہاکہ گلگت بلتستان پیپلز پارٹی کا مضبوط قلعہ ہے، جیالے بھرپور الیکشن مہم چلائیں ۔
https://jang.com.pk/news/817310