By the time this post gets published, India would have been under full or partial lockdown for 79 days. During this time, I have not left my home and have not received any visitors to meet me. All contacts with the outside world has been through telephone, texting and email. Other than my immediate family who share my home with me, I have not met anyone.
The first thing that the lockdown did to me was to stop my daily supply of newspapers and my morning indulgence of seven crossword puzzles. Luckily for me, the supply has started again a few days ago, though one paper, containing the toughest puzzle, which used to come from Mumbai is yet to restart in Pune where I live. None of the periodicals that I have subscribed to, have resumed supplies again.
This spare time was spent on looking for news on my smartphone which led to getting involved in many debates / arguments with members of some groups with differing ideologies and points of view. An obsession also developed to keep going to the smart phone to check for new postings on WhatsApp and twitter.
In this process I lost my power of concentration and was unable to indulge in my next favourite pastime of reading books. I was simply unable to focus and I discussed with another friend who also had the same problem but, who had diagnosed it as anxiety syndrome. I promptly contacted my Psychiatrist, who confirmed that it was indeed so and also that it is quite widely prevalent now. He suggested that I should not worry about it and prescribed some supplements which improved my concentration and I am now able to read books.
I started attending a web meeting of a social group of which I am a member and it has been a completely new and fascinating experience to me.
Another development was that my eyesight started getting to be blurred, and this was diagnosed by my Ophthalmologist as being due to too much time spent on the smart phone. He too said that this too is quite widely prevalent and asked me to reduce the time I spent on it. I duly dropped out of some WhatsApp groups after explaining and apologising and hopefully, things should improve in the next few days.
I haven’t been able to get a hair cut and so the friar’s fringe is now beginning to look like a strange type of duck tail.
I have been able to meditate for longer and this has been the greatest development due to the lockdown.
Other than these, I have had a fairly comfortable time being fussed over by my son and daughter in love. Lucky me!
This is my take on this week’s Friday 6 On 1 blog post topic. The other five bloggers who write on the same topic every Friday are Sanjana, Padmum, Raju, Shackman and Conrad. This week’s topic was suggested by Shackman. Please do go over to their respective blogs to see what they have to say on the topic. Thank you.