Nowadays, as lockdown has become a way of life,
people have learned to kill time. In a fast city like Mumbai where time is
money, killing something as precious as time was indeed similar to a crime,
except on weekends of course. Now time is all that we have to kill, after doing
the daily required tasks at home. When I feel too lazy to do something
productive, my way of killing time is to scroll aimlessly on social media and
before I know it, I feel guilty to have ‘murdered’ significant amount of time
by poking my nose in matters of people which are too distant, almost invisible.
Having said that, I am getting to know people better than before.
Lockdown has drastically changed our lives in a
way that we never imagined before. It has also become a time to reveal the
innate talents that people may have. In short, we get to see ‘India’s got
talent’ on social media. These days whenever I open my ever-active platforms of
social media, they are flooded with posts and stories of cooking attempts by
many people. Most of them look delectable, whether that’s true magic of hands
or of food filters, those dishes and their enjoyers know better. I believe that
cooking and baking have gained popularity like never before during lockdown.
Kitchens, though not of restaurants but of homes, have become busy laboratories
of trying hands at delicacies and a ground for budding chefs. Surely,
restaurants are in for a tough competition once they reopen, for there might be
people who may have found their true passion in cooking and might find
restaurant food insipid. I remember seeing one meme on social media, of a long
queue of people waiting to be auditioned for MasterChef. Any art
requires time and patience. With more free time now, it is great to see people
getting back at art and reliving their younger selves and reviving the talent
that may have got lost in the pre-corona humdrum of life. Be it art work or
recipes made at home with love and hard work, it is good to see people make
fruitful use of gift of time. For foodies like me, there is always a wave of
nostalgia when we watch ‘restaurant-style’ or ‘street food’ recipes on pages
like Gobble, Yum, Your Food Lab etc., if two months can be called long enough
to title it as nostalgia! This pandemic has highlighted the importance of
cleanliness and hygiene among all, so when things are back to normal and we
crave for street food, we definitely should not turn a blind eye to hands of
the bhaiyya who serves pani puri or chaat.
In absence of maids now, we have learned the
meaning of household work anew. We have learned to pay attention better at home. Many
celebrities post their pictures or videos of engaging in household chores in absence
of house help. Corona has thus taught us to not be over- dependent. With the
new ‘Work from Home’ culture, we have learned to do the balancing act and are
proving to be better managers at home and at work. Manager is not simply a designation at office now, but also at home because we are learning to use
the resources at home frugally and keeping the stocks of necessities in check. Many organizations
which previously had qualms about employees working from home, have acclimatized
to this culture and have realized that efficiency does not get hampered, thus
learning that work can be done efficiently from any corner of the world. At my
workplace, there are often encouraging and congratulatory mails for those who
deliver their best while working from home. We also keep the flame of team
spirit alive by playing virtual games and karaoke on Fridays, which help us
stay connected and show our sportive and creative attitude. This pandemic has
changed the outlook towards the way we work and has quashed the traditional
belief that work is done better under the boss’s nose.
On social media, we also see celebrities
working out at home and looking their natural selves with beauty salons being
shut. Just like home offices, we now have home gyms and people diligently work
out at home so as to not gain ‘lockdown weight’. Women who are particular about
their looks have learned to live with their grown eyebrows, non-manicured and
pedicured toes and nails and gray hair. It is time that we women accept our natural
beauty and not depend on external and artificial beautifiers. Though Covid-19 is a grave situation that the
world is facing right now, thanks to social media, we still can have our
moments of laughter in form of lockdown memes and videos. In these trying
times, laughter is proving to be the best medicine to maintain our mental wellbeing.
This spirit of tackling any challenge with a light-hearted sense of humour,
is worth appreciating and we are grateful to such ‘memologists’.
For online streaming channels, it is business
as usual or let’s say it is business more than usual. In a recent article that
I read, Netflix has registered a surge in its number of users during Covid months. The
show and movie releases are as per the dates scheduled and we see competition
among all the channels to bring up good content and value-for-money entertainment
to their subscribers. Recently released Bollywood and Oscar nominated movies
are available on these platforms so that people can have a close-to-theatre
experience. Surely the wait for some much-awaited Bollywood movies is going to be
longer with theatres still being closed. Till then, Netflix, Prime and Hotstar
are there to fulfil our entertainment needs and will still be there once normalcy
is regained. Since the lockdown has started, I have turned from a normal binge-watcher
to a voracious one. The shows and movies which were since eternity on my watchlist
are now being ticked off rapidly, Money Heist being the first one on
that list. Lockdown times are also taking us back to the simple old times. With
shows like Ramayana and Mahabharat back on television and gaining that same old
popularity, it is good to watch television again sans naagin and saas-bahus
dramas. I often watch old episodes of Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai on Hotstar for my doses of laughter. Indoor games are also back with families planning game evenings or
nights. I went back to my school days when I played scrabble with my sister and
it gave me the same happiness building words on that board. Recently I also revisited
my childhood memories by reorganizing my childhood pictures, which lay untouched
and unattended in my set of drawers. As we grow up and become competitive to
achieve our goals, we often forget the innocent children that once we were and
how life seemed simple back then. What could be a nostalgia bigger than looking
at physical photographs made out of Kodak rolls in an era of selfies and high
camera resolutions present in our phones?
The year 2020 is not turning out the way we had
expected. We miss our former ‘normal’. We miss visiting malls, eating out and
watching movies in theatres. Video conference calls have become popular than ever and we see shared snapshots of these cherished conversations with friends and loved ones on social media. We don’t see our travel plans materializing this
year, which we may have thoughtfully planned over years. But if we look at the
silver lining, these tough times have taught us to be self-reliant and understand
the value of freedom. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and in these Covid-19
times, we are inventing our newer personas, ideas and unleashing the potential
within us. Life comes with its set of surprises and none of us expected a
pandemic like this which could bring life to such a standstill. Yet, the world
is now learning to deal with this challenge thrown to us by Nature. Pace of
life has seemed to slow down, but as individuals at home, we are turning out to
be more responsible consumers as well as healthy and creative minds. This lockdown
has taught us that life cannot necessarily be under our control and that nothing
but change, though not always as drastic as this one, is permanent.
