NU Students share their Covid-19 Lockdown experiences

From Jaswant (1st year B.Tech)

It was February. I was in my university and discussing with my friends how corona is not that dangerous. “There is more panic than actual threat” was what we were discussing with each other. Now, 3 months down the line, I still wonder about those discussions. A pandemic was the least of my expectations in this lifetime. Yet here it is, with more than 4 million lives affected and lakh people dead. Anyways, all that we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Confined within the walls of my house are my million thoughts that need counselling. Sometime I want to work on my coding and sometimes I want to write scripts for short films and sometimes I want to improve my gaming skills. Well, I almost always end up sleeping over all of those thoughts. But with so much time at my disposal , I was able to do a few things. I could finish a book, write one script for a short film and also had time to watch a lot of films. Films are the best thing for me in these times of lockdown. I could take my time off the commercial and famous movies and started watching art films, underrated films and films by directors almost forgotten by this generation. Films are after all an escape out of these walls and the poetic beauty never fails to impress you. Few of the directors, whose films I watched , are Satyajit Ray, Andrei Tarkovsky , Lynne Ramsay, Ford Francis Coppola and Stanley Kubrick. Some artists they were. With some time left after I have slept and watched movies , I do spend some time ideally on my roof. Watching the sunsets and reflecting about all of the discussions and life before lockdown. It was this ideal time when I could even think of a few stories to draft for the scripts. With this jump in the number of birds flying over the head, it just became more photogenic to capture. With a few of such captures I started an Instagram page. There are always speed breakers on an easy going road. The project submission deadlines were those breakers. But anyways they were to be done someday. Also you can never escape the duties of keeping your house clean. This is far from real that your parents let you sleep all day and let you watch movies all day. And so I did run errands like cleaning the garden, going for groceries and helping cook food with my mom. In the beginning, I was all ‘no no’ for this. But, hey! who will listen?!. Eventually , I had adjusted to these things. Also, one thing I learned was that news does not always help. The news evolved into a repetitive show of counting cases across the world. Nothing better than the news to get surrounded by the negativity of this pandemic. As if the pandemic was any less. God bless those few people on social media who shared only positive news. News like ‘Fishes returned to the canals of Venice’, ‘Healing of Ozone Layer’ and ‘significant reduction in Pollution in most polluted cities’ made the day. I do hope that these miserable times taught our fellow humans to be grateful, generous and happy. We became more social on social media and maybe that was the saviour. To stay away from all of the friends was a hell of a thought but God bless social media. Eventually , this pandemic had two sides. One was all ugly with people getting sick and dying and many poor people getting affected due to it . But then the other side was all shiny blue with our mother Earth healing and animals finding their spaces for good and people like us spending time with selves to better ourselves. A mixed experience is what we can call it. While it was all good as a break for us but the heart still goes to those poor people dying on the roads, walking back home. May all misery end for all people and cheers to the years coming.

 

From Kaushik (1st year B.Tech)

 

This year has been a rollercoaster of events but leading the junk would be the global pandemic. The Covid-19 situation has been one unforeseen and something that is best avoided. It has been more than a month now since the lockdown was initiated and it was surprising to see the nation’s response, almost everyone came into stride. As for me, I was now locked down at home with my family i.e my parents and I.

In my memory, this was the longest duration I’ve ever been alongside my parents at home. It was a very new lifestyle and it took some adjusting. The first few days were uncomfortable, annoying at times as now the duties of keeping the house clean, cleaning the utensils and other such menial tasks had come to show the work and effort required. These first few days also marked my happiness of an untimely vacation extended; this was a time for watching movies & TV series, reading books, pursuing new hobbies and learning new subjects.

My parents, both working individuals, were now busy working from home, perhaps for even longer hours to meet the necessities of their work schedule. Balancing the work of maintaining the house and their work of the job had become one of the hardest hurdles. And I was now learning the various tasks involved in the household, slowly adapting to using the broomstick and cleaning utensils as I put a hand to help run the house. There were few setbacks, groceries were now scarce and more work was required to run the house, yet I had lots of time, time which I could use for any of my interests.

Few weeks into the lockdown, I was now accustomed with some household tasks. I still had lots of free time but was slowly losing interest in the repetitive indoor activities. Our family was more attentive to the news around us, watching the daily updates as the infection grew and the situation got worse. With the help of masks, we went outside the house, perhaps once in a week to replenish the groceries and other essential items. With the help of video calling, we kept in contact with many of our relatives and friends, trying to talk away the boredom that this dire situation gave rise to. There were regular updates from the college regarding our studies but it was hard studying at home, it was hard to get the same dedication and concentration levels. Yet there was a lot of time.

The lockdown helped me learn various tasks. I could now keep my house clean on my own, wash my utensils, and cook various tasty dishes. I also had the time to watch quite a few good movies & TV series along with completing a few novels on my shelf that were left collecting dust. I had time to diversify my interests and look into different areas and pursue new hobbies. I tried to learn to sketch, read about the basic human psychology, write poems and small stories for my pleasure and tried to push away my boredom. My sleep schedule was now non-existent and the concept of time was lost in the boredom of the lockdown. Regardless of what I did, there was still lots of time at hand and not many activities of interest to fill the gaps. Plus it was getting lonely living with just two working parents who were quite busy with their work throughout the day.

Overall, the lockdown has been a weary experience for me filled with moments of independence and boredom and lots of time spent washing my hands.It took some getting used to but in the end, it’s necessary. So, let us keep fighting the same way by following the right precautions and keep ourselves safe and healthy.