I sang my way out of lockdown

In March 2020, when the Prime Minister of India announced that the country would be going under a 21-day lockdown to combat the Coronavirus pandemic, it was a relief – I got to miss a few remaining finals I had left for the year and got a break from school. At that time, I didn’t think the virus would have such a large-scale effect that it has now. In early quarantine, India had formed a new tradition – at a specific time in the evening, many of us would go to their balconies and rooftops and bang their pots and pans together to show their support and gratitude to our health workers. Those evenings always gave me a feeling of hope, and I remember thinking that, as a community, we would be okay; how long could the Coronavirus last? Alas, the virus showed that it was here to stay – the lockdown got extended repeatedly, and slowly but surely, we ended up spending more than a year inside, stuck at home.

These extended lockdowns meant that no more helpers could come to our homes and cook or clean for us. This meant my mother would have to get up before us and do a lot of the work in the kitchen to prepare food for the family for the day. She also had to take over a lot of the smaller tasks that our helpers would do for us. We did our best to support her, but her office work was still impacted by this, and she would be very tired by the end of the day. I started to recognize the significance of the helpers in our lives and to respect what they do for us. I also noticed the sacrifices my mother was making for the family and started to appreciate that a lot more.

The restrictions on my family’s movement ensured that we all stayed at home – if the past year were to occur without its unexpected circumstances, my brother would have lived near his college campus, my parents would have been working at their respective jobs for the majority of the day, and I would have been going to school and all my extra-curricular classes outside of the house – none of us would have been able to spend a lot of time together. However, the lockdown limitations guaranteed that we all spent a lot of quality time together, which led to a deeper connection between my family members and me.

I recognize that it is a blessing that neither my loved ones nor I endured any tragedies that many others have suffered at the hands of this deadly virus – every day I would wake up to see that India had the highest single-day spike of cases, or the death toll had greatly risen. All I could do was be grateful that no one from my circle was suffering and pray for the families grieving. I fell into a rabbit hole of frightening news articles and blog posts about how bad the situation outside was, which resulted in my mental health taking a turn for the worse.

I decided to take myself out of the negative state the news headlines had put me in, and I started focusing on my biggest passion – music. Music became my medicine – I started playing my comfort songs on speakers at the end of the day, and I would always feel so much better after listening to them. I got into Taylor Swift’s albums around that time; her bright personality and positiveness also helped me get out of the fearful mindset I had gotten into. As famous of a pop star as she is, I had never listened to much of her music, but in the process of discovering it, I fell in love with singing, deeper than I ever was before. I started concentrating more on my voice and I joined the school’s Music Society. I picked up piano again, something that I had not worked on for a long time. Music began weaving its way in and out of my days, slowly brightening my days, and making the situation not feel so terrible.

The virus caused a lot of people, including me, to begin focusing on our immunity, in the hope of saving ourselves from the devastating effects of the virus. Prioritizing my health was something I had never done before; I had not thought anything would happen to me, since I am young. Although the virus did not seem to be impacting children as severely, I did not want to risk it. So, I started doing home workout videos. There was a little side bonus to this that I did not realize – not only did I gain a bit of strength, but I also started having a bit more confidence in myself.

Thanks to the surplus time I have had in my hands, I have begun experimenting with different fields, which led me to pick up a few more skills and discover more interests. I took a graphics design course, as I’ve always quite enjoyed design, and pursuing it in the future was a big question for me. Courses like this and others have helped me understand what I may enjoy doing in the future a bit better.

This period has also led me to rediscover my love for books. When I was younger, I loved reading – every time we would go for a long car ride, I would pack a few books for the road– you could never catch me anywhere without a book in my hands. Somewhere along the way, I stopped finding books that interested me as much, and my passion for reading slowly went away. This year, with no TV shows left to watch, and nothing else to do, I picked up a few books and fell in love with reading again.

Lockdown, for me, has been a very formative experience – it has had its ups and downs, but in the end, it helped me discover parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. The virus has harmed so many people’s families and lives, and it continues to impact more with each passing day. I am very privileged to not have had a bad experience personally, and I am very grateful for that.