It's around 10 am and I am sitting in my balcony with my laptop thinking of something which I can pen down. Though I often don't prefer to sit in my balcony to write because of the disturbances outside but today everything is unusual. There is no disturbance and the environment is calm with deserted streets without any traffic. I can hear the birds chirping and can view the evolving clouds in the sky which often remains obscure. To witness the same environment, every year I along with my family plan a vacation to hill stations. But all thanks to Modiji and his lockdown, I can feel the same here and probably this year we could save some money in our banks. But wait! I can hear some noise in this calm environment. I can see men at the balcony of my opposite building, he is speaking loud with someone over the phone. He looks a little annoyed. He is yelling over the phone "I can't stay more like this. I want to meet you". The amount of frustration can be clearly noticed in his tone. In between the conversation, he disconnected the call and starts sobbing in tears. When I look at him, he strives to cover his moist eyes and as if he is caught in doing some crime. Being a soft-hearted person, I couldn't see him like this and so I asked him "Is everything alright?" He mutters hmmm in a skeptical voice. After insisting him with comfort and sympathy, he decided to open up and says "It's been around 20 days, I have not met my girlfriend. I am missing her a lot. How long this would continue?"
I queried him about why he didn't meet his girlfriend when there was no lockdown as it's been less than the 11 days of the 21 days lockdown. He after wiping his tears told me "It's not like we didn't get the opportunity to meet before lockdown. She had often asked me to meet her before lockdown but it was me who always made excuses of work". "So why you did this?" I asked with curiosity to which he responded, "I was puzzled whether I love her or not even though I confessed to her that I am in love with her but from inside I was without such feelings. I was instead more in love with her outer appearance".
Sitting on my beside terrace, he talked about his days when he used to meet her but instead of talking to her, he scrolled his mobile screen all the time and had tried ignoring her emotionally. But this lock down unlocked his behavior of ignorance which he was maybe unaware of. He can understand now that how ignoring someone feels like. This shows that when we are free, we take lots of things for granted. We remain free moving everywhere but emotionally we are stuck with our own narratives. This is something easy that we often understand the importance of someone when they are away from us or inaccessible but to understand this simple aspect, we required a lockdown to come and unlock our stuck emotions. Don't ignore anyone in your life when you get the opportunity to spend time with them because at some point of time when the hangover of ignoring someone ends, it brings the same pain which you may have given to someone else unintentionally.
Take this lockdown as an opportunity to melt down your emotions which have been frozen with the pressure of work, studies or simply your ignorance. Before this lockdown ends, redefine all your relations by gaining proper keys which were missing since long.
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