COVID-19 lockdown: An opportunity to reinvent and re-evaluate oneself

India completes 33 days of the pandemic lockdown, implemented from March 25 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The coronavirus lockdown has forced people to remain inside their homes and only leave to shop for necessities. While the COVID-19 frontline warriors are working diligently to fight this pandemic, people are re-evaluating and reinventing themselves under the strict confinement of their homes.

“Initially when I got to know about the lockdown, I was happy,” says Monjoy Bose smiling. He admits that after seven days of the lockdown, he became alert and kept surfing on the internet about the contagion.

Caught in the captive lockdown, the businessman, spends his time enjoying the murky sky, counting stars, and sometimes even observing how the moon changes its color from “white to off-white”.

While the number of cases is rising due to coronavirus in the world, Bose feels that the pandemic has brought some relief to the nature. “I can see birds outside my windows,” says the nature lover, adding, “Not only nature is healing but also humans are healing.”

There is fear among people due to rumor-mongering on social media and the false propaganda that is being spread by the television, adds Bose.

The contagion has caused more than one lakh deaths worldwide bringing the world powers to a standstill. The University of Oxford has started coronavirus vaccine trials on healthy volunteers. The whole world is hoping for positive results from the vaccine trials.

India has reported 24,532 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 780 deaths as of April 25, according to covid19india.org. India is currently in phase-2 of the lockdown implemented by the Government of India as a continuation of the earlier lockdown to flatten the curve of the virus.

Pratima Singh, a software developer from Chennai believes that the impact of the lockdown is multi-dimensional and varies with different situations of people.

“The first week went off with accepting the fact that coronavirus is something serious and the pandemic situation is not limited to movies like Contagion or some documentary,” says the movie buff.

She admits that the second and third weeks were most crucial as the cycle of overthinking started popping negative questions inside her mind, “What if I get corona? When am I going to see my family?” As the fourth week started, she got used to the lockdown, says Singh, “Well it takes 21 days to accommodate a habit.”

The software developer is full of optimism and stresses that if people have good health, family, food, job, and money in the “unforgettable 2020”, they should be grateful and help others in need. “The lockdown is going to change the perspective of every individual about how we see each other,” emphasizes Singh.

While the lockdown has forced working individuals to spend maximum time with their families, Rashika Sharma thinks that her family’s way of living is very different from hers.

“My family lives a well-maintained life and I, on the other hand, was just living my robot life - get up late, go to the office, come back home, watch something online and sleep late at night,” the software tester opines.

Birds chirping, rustling of leaves, essential vehicles and ambulances’ siren are the only sounds that people hear these days. Sharma appreciates the silence outside and enjoys the cool breeze and chirping of birds during this lockdown.

Many people are using this lockdown to reevaluate and reinvent themselves. “I always wanted to learn guitar and this lockdown has given me ample time to try my hands on the strings,” says Mayank Mrinal, a marketing manager.

An avid traveler, he is utilizing this time to plan a trip to Europe during Christmas and hopes everything will be under control by then. The manager is also spending a lot of time reading about the post COVID economy and planning his next move to start his business.

The invisible disease has caused a lot of trouble for daily wage workers. Stranded away from their home, these people are going through psychological trauma. Ashish Tiwari a software developer, is in constant touch with the workers and he feels that they are the ones who are suffering the most under this lockdown.

“I am quite privileged. I have food on my table, a roof over my head and I am staying with my family,” says Tiwari. He insists that the government should have taken proper steps to handle the problems of the workers as they are fully dependent on the government for necessities.

For some people lockdown has not changed anything. Logesh who works as a bank manager goes to his office daily. The only change he observes is that people are “very cautious at workplace”. The offices are equipped with hand sanitizers and every time he enters the office temperature screening is done.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted India’s growth rate at 1.9 %, as the global economy hits the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. While the Gross Domestic Product growth of India is dropped but it is better than many developing countries whose growth rates are predicted to be negative by the IMF.

Many 2020 pass out college students are finding it difficult to get a job during this hard time. A recent college pass out Mrinal Pathak who has great plans for his journalism career says that the future is quite uncertain. An aspiring journalist, he has started working from home for a newspaper but he wishes to go out in the field and do ground reporting.

Despite the uncertainty many people are appreciating this lockdown. Nikita Srivastava, an analyst, admits that she is finally getting a break from her grinding life at the office.

“There are no Monday morning scrambles, no traffic struggles, no have-to-go-there, have-to-buy-that,” says the analyst, adding, “I think this is a break that everyone was craving for from such a long time, now they are being granted the same, they want to go back to normal.”