Quarantine Days

From our morning newspaper to our domestic help, from amusement parks to movie theatres and malls, from public transport to air travel—LITERALLY everything has come to a standstill. I really haven’t experienced anything crazier than this in the history of my entire life so far and I’m sure even you never saw a catastrophe like this coming your way.  We almost never knew that life could look like this too. I mean us millennials not knowing when we’ll get to go out next is absolutely devastating. But, you know what else is devastating? The world falling apart. 

We’re smart, educated individuals. We are probably not looking at the reality of things as clearly as our parents want us to, but we’re definitely doing the world a favour by staying home. I understand that waking up to another godforsaken news every morning is just a major buzzkill (as if life isn’t already a HUGE buzzkill in itself, but okay), in fact I myself wake up to a major commotion induced by the sounds of Ramayan and Republic Bharat and trust me that’s not very pleasant either. Sometimes I wake up feeling directionless, disoriented and SO depressed and I have no clue why and on some other days, I wake up with a plan to somehow make my day productive than others but it’s been a while since I woke up happy feeling motivated and content. As much as I’ve cried and cribbed about this getting over, I’ve also actually managed to do some things that I wouldn’t have normally done had I not been this desperate to kill time. Those who know me know what a HUGE deal it is for me to actually go into the kitchen and cook something, but this lockdown made me realise the amount of work my mother does everyday even without a lockdown and that motivated me to go help her out—that’s when I finally decided to make 0.5% use of my precious free time to try some cooking. From dalgona coffee to pani puri and momos, we followed every trend with a bang and I couldn’t feel more proud of myself! But again, this was only a distraction to forget the world’s heartbreaking reality. 

With humans locked up amid the walls of their houses, we realised what caged animals felt like every single day of their lives. While we’re trying to keep busy finding ways to kill time, birds and animals decided it was time to trespass on human grounds. While we're binge watching and binge eating, nature is finally rejuvenating itself. Maybe, God always knew that humans couldn’t have saved their environment until forced to do so. Maybe, God always knew that he’s going to have to use his trump card one day. We need to understand that this is nature’s way of retaliating and if we humans keep having a mental breakdown every now and then, even nature’s allowed to have one of it’s own. Isn’t it? 

Some of us were close to graduating and about to step into professional life while some of us were already so busy with our professional life—we were all somewhere living the busy life of our so-called dreams while our parents were collecting every penny to help make that happen and now, we’re all here living under the same roof reconnecting and living a few extra days before we turn into robots again. Some of us were also struggling, but now we’re at peace in the company of our loved ones. Maybe we needed this, maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Yes, of course we miss our lives, we miss how occupied we were, but our parents missed us no matter how occupied they were. So, let’s do this for them, to fill our hearts with love again. Let’s keep our spirits high and our hopes higher, let’s try some more recipes and set some more trends, let’s motivate ourselves to do that workout routine and follow that diet, but let’s do it. Let’s spend a few more days on bed doing nothing, binge watching some more shows we’ve always wanted to, crib about having an absolutely unproductive day, but let’s do it. 

Do what you want but do it for you because once this is over, life wouldn’t be the same again and you know what? You’ll still miss your quarantine days because we humans, have an old habit of never being happy with what we have. 

And trust me, I know it’s been a while but we’re going to be fine. 

- Saakshi Agarwal