Often we see some memes in social media starting with ’90’s kids be like’. Well, the complete national lockdown will be something for all of us not only the 90’s kids(or adults). Its the first time all of us are facing such a serious situation. Just before lockdown, I was the kind of person who wanted to sit at home puposefully, but now that I have to do that, I’m rethinking my priorities. We all must, as a matter of fact.
How many of us used to complain of atleast one thing a day ( I have a list of my old complaints) ? We all had that face – ‘Why did the maid take a leave today of al days’ or ‘Why is the damn traffic this bad’ or ‘why did I get this task on Friday’. I’m sure all of us can find so many mundane complaints that used to spoil our moods pre-lockdown days. Now that we have no traffic to beat, nor do we have the maid coming, nor does it matter if its a Friday or Monday, I’m actually surprised – Why did we make a big deal of all this?
Instagram and Facebook are filled with different ways people are coping with the lock down. People sharing workout videos, cooking experiments, people dusting their hidden talents and many are coming up with challenges some of which are too funny. What is a day without challenging at least one person! Reflecting on myself, there are not much changes in my days except that I’m waking up early to do my yoga everyday. Apart from that half an hour, my days are the same – finishing the household chores before my work time. That includes bathing the baby, feeding the baby, washing our clothes etc. Thankfully, cooking department is being handled by my mother. Sometimes I feel jealous of people doing various kinds of fun activities like cooking, painting etc. I even started to paint an earthen pot with some mandal designs ( I couldn’t find proper brushes / paints and can’t go out to buy them even).
On a weekend, I decided to do some cooking experiments. Unfortunately, any recipe I take from the internet there are ingredients you just can’t find in a normal Kerala household. So I read 2 books in a weekend. One was a self motivational book and the other was a fiction by an Indian author. But then I used to read before lockdown also, at night after I put the baby to sleep. So it was nothing new. The new feeling which I had is that I began to miss people. I agree I’m with my family, I’m getting more time to spend with them all that I’m happy for. But I miss the camaraderie that I shared with my colleagues, the cafeteria at office with all those varieties of evening snacks ( which I used to eat complaining about the oil content), oh hell I even miss the long line for tea. Not only office, I miss getting ready for office, going out..who wants to stay in your pajamas for the whole day?
In addition to all this, we have the looming pandemic. On a brighter side, we are safe in our homes, with our family, we have food in our bellies, damn we got a job with salary also. Aren’t we all lucky? So coming back to priorities, the only things we need to worry about are food, shelter and such basic things. There’s no need to spoil a day because the maid took leave , we can live without her also. There’s no problem if we couldn’t get tickets to a movie we wanted to see so badly (good for you, you won’t get any virus from there). We can spend time with our loved ones watching TV also. My point is, we are good the way we are even if we are not doing anything special or instagram-worthy. It’s completely fine if you didn’t make dalgona coffee or watch Money Heist! Sometimes being simple is also special, just try it !