QuaranTale! — My Life in Lockdown.

I am a 24-year-old girl and recently moved to Gurgaon in a shared PG. This is the first time that I moved away from my joint family to live in another city. Simply put, living with a roommate with whom you exchange only a few words in a day, I feel apprehended in this lockdown.

I always desired to stay on my own, alone in a city with my freedom. But I had never anticipated it would have been this way. I could have gone home, like others, earlier before this lockdown was announced. But I decided not to travel because I did not want to jeopardize myself and my family. I thought I’d enjoy working from home but, unfortunately, there are a lot of distractions around you. You may have to stop working to attend to other matters. You need to help and work with your roommate to prepare the meals, complete household chores, and other stuff.

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Everything, right from my eating habits to my sleep pattern, has been disturbed. Even though I have always been a crying child, there are still times when I cry myself to sleep. However, this is different when the magnitude of the situation and gravity of uncertainty, anxiety, worry come all at once. There have been several occurrences in the previous days when I felt stupid that I should have gone home. You do sometimes feel your friends and family do not realize that you are also there. They forget to call or message because they have a life of their own to worry about. You risk falling in deep and intense thoughts and start questioning yourself if you are alone or lonely.

I have started taking an interest in sketching and cooking. It has been my savior and helped me keep lucidity. I know many others are dealing with even worse situations. I feel blessed to have a roof over my head, meals in my kitchen, and, of course, uninterrupted Wi-Fi which somehow has helped me in easing the situation. It is rejoicing to see that during this strange time, we all somehow are being able to bring the creative person out of us. We recently celebrated the virtual birthday of my friend and played online games.

I believe this phase is about being understanding, caring, and connecting with people. Also, making sure that we ask people we connect with on how they are doing and if they feel good.