Lockdown Day 2 : 24th March, 2020
“The most beautiful moments always seemed to accelerate and slip beyond one’s grasp just when you want to hold onto them for as long as possible.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
These days, I have taken refuge to story books. From my childhood I never got a chance to read anything except text-books. Even though my parents had sneaked one or two story-books inside their text-books when they were little, that did not happen to me. The only time I read story-books was in the library period.
In my school, there was a library period, I think the main objective of that period was to entice children towards reading. Our ma’m used to give story books to each one of us, a week later while returning we had to tell her the gist of the story. I wish I had taken that period a bit more seriously. With increasing pressure of studies, many of us couldn’t read the books completely in a week or could’t even flip the pages for that matter. We used to ask the girls who got the books before for the summary- surely enough the essence of the library period was failing for our stupidity.
At present time, my sister has managed to buy a lot of books (on history, literature, mythological stories, religious scripture). In the days of lock-down those have come to rescue me from the inevitable boredom. I have a habit of reading books loudly. Not like a student would do to memoriize his/her lessons, rather I like to read to myself or to people.
I was reading the Bhagavata Purana and thought of reading it my mom. Mom has read it when she was in school. Growing up, I have heard many interesting stories from the Bhagavata Purana from my maternal grandma. It is about Lord Vishnu, his many incarnations and tales of his greates disciples- how a normal human can attain moksha i.e. freedom from the cycle of births and deaths etc. My mom being a religious person herself, I thought it would be great idea to spend some quality time with her. When she finished house-hold work and finally came to take rest, I used to read that book to her… I didn’t mind when she dozed off listening to it- she was tired indeed.
Most of the time when I read books to her, sister would interrupt with something or the other.
Mom too does not seem to be much interested in listening to me. One of the reason I doubt is beacuse the book is in English and probably she cannot follow each and every line of it. She understands the context though. She has read the Sanskrit and Bengali renditions of many mythological pieces except English.
Reading the book to her, wasn’t for enlightening her with the spiritual knowledge she already has, rather I took it as something to bond over at this difficult time. Working in Hyderabad, I do not get enough time spend with my family in West Bengal. But unfortunately, nobody in my family shares the same point of view as me and that broke my heart.
I left my mom and sister alone to scroll through their phones and watch TV by themselves. I remain in a seperate room, minding my own business, doing work, sometimes writing or watching videos. Probably my family would never value this moment we have here, today.
My dad on the other hand has a better social life than any of us. He talks to his best friend over phone every single day. This guy was his classmate in school, even in their 60s- they have the same friendship. They discuss about family matters and politics. It’s their daily routine to keep each other updated regarding the current affairs in all over the world.
I still try to have breakfast, lunch and dinner when everybody is at the dinning table. I remain calm and do not participate in any discussion…
At night, 8 PM we all gathered in front of the TV for our Prime Minister Modi’s speech- He decalred a 21 days loockdown in all over the country.
Truly, this decides our fate… I hope, every Indian brother and sister take this seriously and remain at home. I hope the poor people do not go to bed empty-stomach. It’s very much challenging time for the families that live on daily wages. Govt. needs to take care of these less fortunate countrymen at this time of crisis.
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