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Your first reactions on lockdown
It was on the 24 th of March, 2020, that the Prime Minister of India announced a nationwide
lockdown for 21 days to combat the pandemic of Covid-19 through social distancing. This was the
first time that I came across the word ‘lockdown’.
Since I never knew the meaning of the word ‘lockdown’ my first reaction was to bombard my father with questions pertaining to it: “What is a lockdown?”, “Why did our PM order lockdown?”, “When will the lockdown be lifted?”, “What will we do during the lockdown period?” These were some of my questions to my father. He immediately tried to explain to me in detail what it meant literally and what we were expected to do during the lockdown. That is how I started getting familiar with the term. My father also explained to me that we were in a situation of fighting something that we cannot see, the Covid-19 virus. I learnt from him that this virus had made its first appearance in the Wuhan city of China, from where it silently and rapidly spread to all other parts of the world.
All the countries were alerted by the World Health Organization (WHO) about the virus and it was prescribed by them that if at all anything can be done to get a grip over this virus was to ‘break the chain’. My next question to my father was - ‘What kind of chain are you talking about?’ He told me that Covid-19 virus was contagious and it spread from one person to another through physical contact; thereby, it formed a chain of infected people. The more I heard about it the more I started to feel scared. It felt as if I was being chased by a tiger and no matter how fast I tried to run, the ground seemed to fall short, and the tiger came closer. As I got engrossed in my father’s lecture, my expression of anxiety must have become prominent, so he stopped his explanation. He told me it was good to be informed, but not good to panic. I gathered from all his trivia that I had to remain calm and maintain the precautionary guidelines issued by the Government to safeguard ourselves from this pandemic.
The news of one of the deadliest foes, the Corona virus, lurking around and making its rounds, was difficult to gauge. And our country too is its victim. We had hardly understood what this invisible enemy was really capable of doing, when we got another bombshell, the lockdown. It was absolutely shocking to comprehend that we could not go out for anything at all. Yes, for us children it was a complete house arrest. I say so because the elders at home, including my father, could at least go out to buy food and other essentials.
After the long conversation with my father, I decided to share the news with my best friend. So I called her up and she had the same concern in her voice. Then I shared with her all the information I had gathered from my father. She said she too had learnt all this from the news channels. We both rejoiced at the thought that the school will remain closed during the lockdown period. After all, we do not get such long breaks these days post the final exams. Now we are relieved from worries about studies, homework and exams. So, in a way, the lockdown was good news for us.
However, my happiness ended when I started to think about all the poor people living on the roadside. They were perhaps the most at risk. So long at least people would give them alms or even food, but now no one was going to do that. I was concerned how would they survive? Then there were people who were away from their homes, for work purpose, how would they return? Because lockdown meant, no public transport would be available. The people who earn their daily living by selling things, how would they sustain themselves? And the most glaring question was, how would we know who is a carrier of the virus?
All these thoughts created some kind of psychological reactions of weirdness in us. The fear of the unknown suffocated us. We felt immensely stressed initially but gradually it began to ease with time. We found out new ways to keep us occupied fruitfully. I did not want to bother my father any further so I ceased to question him. But one thing I did realise that the hard times are ahead and we have to be strong, physically, mentally and most importantly emotionally, during this hard time.
©arked 2021
© Arked
Since I never knew the meaning of the word ‘lockdown’ my first reaction was to bombard my father with questions pertaining to it: “What is a lockdown?”, “Why did our PM order lockdown?”, “When will the lockdown be lifted?”, “What will we do during the lockdown period?” These were some of my questions to my father. He immediately tried to explain to me in detail what it meant literally and what we were expected to do during the lockdown. That is how I started getting familiar with the term. My father also explained to me that we were in a situation of fighting something that we cannot see, the Covid-19 virus. I learnt from him that this virus had made its first appearance in the Wuhan city of China, from where it silently and rapidly spread to all other parts of the world.
All the countries were alerted by the World Health Organization (WHO) about the virus and it was prescribed by them that if at all anything can be done to get a grip over this virus was to ‘break the chain’. My next question to my father was - ‘What kind of chain are you talking about?’ He told me that Covid-19 virus was contagious and it spread from one person to another through physical contact; thereby, it formed a chain of infected people. The more I heard about it the more I started to feel scared. It felt as if I was being chased by a tiger and no matter how fast I tried to run, the ground seemed to fall short, and the tiger came closer. As I got engrossed in my father’s lecture, my expression of anxiety must have become prominent, so he stopped his explanation. He told me it was good to be informed, but not good to panic. I gathered from all his trivia that I had to remain calm and maintain the precautionary guidelines issued by the Government to safeguard ourselves from this pandemic.
The news of one of the deadliest foes, the Corona virus, lurking around and making its rounds, was difficult to gauge. And our country too is its victim. We had hardly understood what this invisible enemy was really capable of doing, when we got another bombshell, the lockdown. It was absolutely shocking to comprehend that we could not go out for anything at all. Yes, for us children it was a complete house arrest. I say so because the elders at home, including my father, could at least go out to buy food and other essentials.
After the long conversation with my father, I decided to share the news with my best friend. So I called her up and she had the same concern in her voice. Then I shared with her all the information I had gathered from my father. She said she too had learnt all this from the news channels. We both rejoiced at the thought that the school will remain closed during the lockdown period. After all, we do not get such long breaks these days post the final exams. Now we are relieved from worries about studies, homework and exams. So, in a way, the lockdown was good news for us.
However, my happiness ended when I started to think about all the poor people living on the roadside. They were perhaps the most at risk. So long at least people would give them alms or even food, but now no one was going to do that. I was concerned how would they survive? Then there were people who were away from their homes, for work purpose, how would they return? Because lockdown meant, no public transport would be available. The people who earn their daily living by selling things, how would they sustain themselves? And the most glaring question was, how would we know who is a carrier of the virus?
All these thoughts created some kind of psychological reactions of weirdness in us. The fear of the unknown suffocated us. We felt immensely stressed initially but gradually it began to ease with time. We found out new ways to keep us occupied fruitfully. I did not want to bother my father any further so I ceased to question him. But one thing I did realise that the hard times are ahead and we have to be strong, physically, mentally and most importantly emotionally, during this hard time.
©arked 2021
© Arked