Earth is locked: Lockdown experience during COVID-19
Almost all of us had a very challenging time last few months during the complete lockdown of cities in this COVID-19 pandemic. Few of us are still in this lockdown whereas some places it’s a little relaxed now. This all scare started early this year when everyone around the globe was worried about this virus merely by reading and watching news channels and getting aware of the conditions of other countries. We never wondered that this was coming to us.
Early March when I had just returned from an amazing weekend trip with my friends, I never imagined that this might be my last trip of the year. Coronavirus which was just in news earlier, started spreading in my country (India) and slowly spreading in almost all the cities.
This was the time when we were just discussing coronavirus among our friends and colleagues and nobody thought this will become a very hot topic to talk about, whether its a weekend party at a friend's place or lunch in the office cafeteria. Soon people started suspecting everyone with a slight cough and cold.
It was Tuesday, 10th March and I was celebrating a colorful festival of Holi with my friends and by the evening we didn’t realize that the outbreak of coronavirus has hit our country already. People started avoiding large gatherings in public places. It was just a few days I went to the office and suddenly we got to know that workplaces are going to shut and now everyone will work remotely to avoid any kind of gatherings. It was 14th March 2020, my last day in the office and then this wave of work from home (WFH) started and took me with it.
WFH Lifestyle
Work | Eat | Sleep | Repeat
Initial days were very relaxed and fun, just sitting at home in my pajamas in my comfort zone and working at my own pace. Slowly I started enjoying this slowness of life around me, and days started passing by. Initially, everyone thought this was just for a few days and eventually everything will become normal. But the virus started spreading fast and the government declared nationwide lockdown. This created a panic among everyone and people started hoarding groceries and household stuffs. Everyone got scared this time and worried about the situation. It was time to get serious and started taking all the measures to avoid the spread of this virus.
After a few days of relaxation, I started focusing on my schedule and created a rough time table for myself. Initial days were very systematic, I used to focus on my office work and meetings, cook my meal, started doing some sketches, and in the evening some exercise. This looked like a perfect plan to survive the lockdown peacefully, without getting into any kind of mental pressure.
The New Normal
Everybody started adapting to some new hobby. The entire social media was full of food preparations and food photography. Some started doing poetry, practicing dance, or music. Many social media trend started blooming, from making dalgona coffee to creating tik-tok videos and whatnot. The entire internet was flooding with these photos and videos. I was aware that this was only for a few days and soon people will get bored of it. All of my Whatsapp group messages were either food photos that people prepared by themselves or food-related posts. I also started falling in this trap and started cooking different dishes that I miss eating and soon this became my new stress buster. But as I said, I knew this will not long last.
However, I did not upload any of my food preparations on social media platform thinking of those who are locked down in some unfortunate place with not so privileged lifestyle. But sharing few pictures here just to add some colors in this article :)
This was everyone’s very first experience of lockdown. People started spending more time with themselves and their friends and family members. The world started changing and people thought it would make it a better place. No traffic, no pollution, no noise, this was making the environment clean and breathable. Nature was healing, we started seeing many birds in the urban sky. The sky was so clear that we started seeing the cityscapes clearly.
Will This End?
It’s almost 3 months now, working like this, staying home, away from everything. India recorded more than 2 Lakh cases now. The world economy is going down and the same is happening in India. Many firms started cutting employee’s salaries, mandatory unpaid leaves, people started getting lay-off from their job, and not only this but many lost their jobs. Now is the time to get serious, serious about the country, its economy, and people.
I read many articles regarding the post-COVID-19 world, how one can bring change to this situation? Being a designer by myself, its time to become responsible and, think of some design-driven ideas for this post covid world and act upon it!
