Life in the Time of Coronavirus
The American Stuck in a Hotel Room During India’s Coronavirus Lockdown
A series about how this pandemic affects our lives, our loved ones, our work, and our way of life
Life in the Time of Coronavirus is a new GEN series where we are interviewing people across the country who have had their lives upended or who are experiencing the stress of the unknown.
Michael Coyle, 33, is an architectural project manager for the General Services Administration in Washington, D.C. He has been stranded in India after his flight home was canceled on March 21 and the country implemented a travel lockdown on March 22.
I was on an architectural exploration in India. I saw the Taj Mahal, some temples in Jaipur, and went to the Holi festival in Pushkar. It was there I first started to understand how the virus was affecting the country. I was going to go into a building and when I got close, an armed guard was like, “No, you can’t come here. It’s closed due to the coronavirus.” Nothing else in the city was closed, it was just buildings that were trafficked by tourists. Other than that, it didn’t seem like there was anything going on.
