I was already aware of the start of the Coronavirus in China from the month of February. My board exams were going on at that time and everything seemed fine. My friends and I were making plans for a short one-day trip to relax after the stress of the board exams which got over on the 18th of February. Then, the lockdown was declared shortly after. It was really stressful for people like me to handle this pain. ?
But, no problem, this pandemic gave me a chance to discover myself very nicely. One fine morning during the lockdown, in the month of April, I got the random idea to paint on canvas with acrylic paint. And what next? I went to a neighbourhood stationery shop and brought painting materials, and I found that I was painting really well! ?
About one month passed, I kept on painting, and then came my phase of watching old TV shows of the 90s on DD national! I started with the Ramayana in April and ended with the Mahabharata in September. And today, I feel that they were actually amazing shows and fell in love with Mahabharata especially.
In between this Ramayana and Mahabharata phase came the board exam results. If those were the ‘usual’ days, we would probably be in school, discussing our tension face-to-face, but here all of us were sharing our tension over WhatsApp groups. On June 15th, everyone was very tensed, chatting on our WhatsApp groups, sharing our condition, how relatives were calling us, guessing each others marks, and simultaneously, opening the CBSE website (that crashed after the results were released?). Finally, the results were declared and it was not bad! Parallelly, online classes were going on.
Like everyone else, we were also trying different recipes every day. There used to be many experiments in the kitchen with some food item everyday. It became my everyday routine for three months straight!?
Apart from this, a big tension that used to be in our mind 24*7 was the sneezing and coughing. If somebody used to sneeze, it used to give a heart attack-kind-of-feeling to everyone!
During this COVID period, there came one thing whose variety ended up being more than the variety of utensils in the kitchen: ‘the sanitiser’! From aloe vera sanitiser, to spray sanitisers, natural sanitisers, free with soap sanitisers, lemon sanitisers, etc etc. Normally a family of 4 to 5 would use a standard-size Dettol handwash for approximately a month, but our family finished that bottle in 10-days straight (as must have happened with most Indian families).
And now, the vaccination process has started, schools are opening rapidly, people are feeling safe, and everything is coming on track. Overall, this COVID period was a rollercoaster ride for all of us with a lot of sneezing and coughing!