A journey with journals
CHENNAI: Sitting in my shorts, surrounded by an unfolded quilt, an empty cup of coffee and an unopened planner, I’m not sure if I want to admit this to myself, but I have no idea what time or day it is. I want to say it feels like a late afternoon but my phone’s lock screen indicates otherwise. It’s a bright, and early 8.15 am, and this muddle alone seems like too much work for my brain that wants to call it a night already.
Our construct of time has gotten lax over the past few weeks, wait, or has it been months now? Was it only three weeks since we’ve been in national lockdown? And only a few days since we decided Diwali came early? Here’s the thing, life as we’ve known it is no more. But don’t fret just yet, because making sense of this collective new reaity might just be a pen, video clip and a doodle away — Journaling! On March 31, Vridhi Khanna, a 22-year-old Chennai native studying in Melbourne, Australia, made her secondever journal entry. It began “Hey fear; it’s me, Vridhi. You’re safe and welcome here. I’m here to listen. What are you trying to tell me?” Watching the chaos around her, with family a continent away, Vridhi tells me that taking up journaling was her way of “trying not to go crazy.”
A first-time attempt at penning something down, signing up for email journal prompts from Instagrammer Amber Rae has been her go-to. With Vridhi only four days into the process, New Delhi-based junior research associate, Urbi Chatterjee doesn’t remember a time in her life that she hasn’t journaled. “It’s always been a space of release for me. I don’t do it daily but use it to jot down peculiar observations or brainstorm ideas. Especially now, it’s been constructive in exploring my emotions, no matter how irrational they seem,” she explains. Veering away from the traditional words on paper approach, Akshayaa Selvaraj decided to add a little pizazz to her thoughts through pieces of artwork.
“I was an introvert growing up and took to journaling. But only with Inktober in 2018, did I begin to express through art journaling. It’s been a liberating evolution,” she details. The Chennai native also takes to Instagram to post her journal entries for her audience. If I can help someone feel a little less alone in these times, I’ll do it gladly, she adds. And if art and writing may not be your cups of tea, enter, Anmol Oberoi and his short video journals.
The theatre artist, who’s been back at home in Chennai for the lockdown period, tells me about his habit of clicking photos of random moments, no matter how unaesthetic. “Especially during this quarantine, I’ve been putting these photos together and compiling it into a record. Memory is fickle, and I want to be able to look back and remind myself of these chaotic times,” he says. With many more journaling options up for grabs, it’s an excellent way to get creative this lockdown period and find a certain clarity amid all the uncertainty. And if nothing else, it’ll be a thriller of a bedtime story you could read or show to your children in the future!