Hello everyone. My name is Bodhisatva Khanderao. I am 13 years old. I am working for social forestation since 2013.
Today, I would like to share my experiences during the lockdown period. In March 2019, our annual exams were going on. We were busy with our studies. I was dreaming of enjoyment during the holidays after the exams. My father promised to take me swimming on the last day of the exam. I love swimming and was eagerly waiting for my last paper. I was dreaming about how good jumping into the water would feel.
And one day, the government declared the lockdown due to the COVID -19 pandemic. We could not appear for the remaining two papers. I became nervous. We stopped going to the market or for shopping.
My father purchased a lot of grocery items from the market. He said that we could not get the daily essentials easily hence after. We all were frightened, sad and confused. My mother asked the maid not to come for work. She started doing all household chores herself. I could not go to my friends’ house, and they stopped coming to ours.
I would watch TV all day. We all started watching news related to COVID. But as time passed, I started feeling bored. Making new gadgets is my hobby. So I started spending my time making new gadgets! I made a cooler for over-heated smartphones. I also made a mobile stand using waste PVC pipes.
I completed my holiday homework. I made a model of Future Indian Space Station, along with a two-holed socket, which is useful to shut the warp door in the rainy season. I fixed an LED light on my bicycle too since we live in a small village where we don’t have street lights. I also repaired our old desktop.
I learnt the traditional dhokla recipe, planted four trees, stitched masks for myself, and even wrote some poems and jingles on COVID-19! I also spent time working in our small garden. I made green pouches. In addition, I also made some new videos and uploaded them on YouTube. I participated in different online quizzes and programs as well. I took free online classes to learn coding and math, etc., played with my pets, listened to music and watched my favourite videos on YouTube. I participated in different online workshops too. Still, I am missing my school, my classmates, teachers and a number of things we used to do at school. Sometimes, we also went to the nearby forests and collected seeds for Seed-Balls.
I also won the international ‘Young Eco-Hero Award’ for my environmental work from a San Francisco-based organization called ‘Action for Nature’. I am a busy person. I think that if you learn to cope up with a situation, you can find new ways of life. If you learn to accept and understand things, you can manage them too! The earth has faced innumerable calamities, wars, mishaps, but it rotates and revolves regularly.
We all are the children of our mother earth, and We must learn these things from her and fight all the difficulties. Be courageous! Be patient! Take care of yourself and others too. This is how we all can overcome this crisis.