CHENNAI: The alarm rang again at 4.55 am. I woke up with the usual frown on my face, but I suddenly realised that I don’t have to go to office. With a sigh of relief and a wide smile I pulled myself out of bed, all ready for self-quarantine days! I had all day to accomplish any thing I wanted or so I thought until several hours passed by and all I kept doing was switch between my phone and the TV. Forty selfies, 20 boomerangs and several Instagram challenges later, I began wondering how I was going to pull through the rest of the lockdown. This was when I decided to explore the rarely opened corner shelf of our house. It was a surprise. And a pleasant one at that.
After pulling out all the different-sized boxes, I sat down to dust them one by one — each one a fragment of a childhood. The brown cardboard box was a magic box that took me back to my childhood with all the treasures like cards, carrom board coins and dice. I put all the games in place, gathered my family members and we began playing the games one after another — carrom board, Snakes and Ladders, cards, Uno and Monopoly.
The best part is that I get to spend more time with my grandparents; I teach them some games and they teach me some — while I taught them to play Khaabo and Uno, my grandfather taught me ‘donkey’ and I am loving it! We love the competition and, most importantly, we love spending time with each other. There have been days when all I wanted was to get a message telling “No work today”. And now when I finally have all the free time in the world, I made a promise to myself to learn as many new things as possible. From reliving my childhood to spending quality time with my grandparents, which rarely happens because I’m always away in the city for work, I’m beginning to enjoy every bit of this lockdown. I’m attending personal history classes with my grandfather, who has been sharing excerpts from his life in politics.
I’ve been doing almost everything that I wanted to do when I’m on leave — reading books, watching new movies and documentaries, and learning to cook new dishes. I’ve also been video-calling my best friends almost every day and it feels so good. I’m finally getting some ‘me time’ and I think that’s really important as well. I’ve also learned the importance of talking to each other and how beautiful life can be when you decide to spend some time with family. — Thushara Ann Mathew (Write to cityexpresschn@ gmail.com and tell us how you are spending this quarantine)