Impact of lockdown on my life

On March 20, 2020, I had received a job offer in Hyderabad from an upcoming company that had a lot of promise. The operations' manager in that firm told me that I was selected as a content writer and I would get an offer letter in the first week of April stating the same. I was feeling gung-ho and looking forward to joining this new firm.

The Indian PM, Narendra Modi, announced a Janta-curfew on March 22, and followed it up with a lockdown, beginning from March 25. No one in the country had suspected until then that COVID-19 had become a pandemic. Only when I watched the foreign TV channels, such as BBC and CNN, it had become clear to me that this was no usual virus like swine flu or other such infections that were restricted to a few regions of the world and could be contained easily. Meanwhile, the person who offered me a job became incommunicado. All my calls and emails to him remain unanswered to date.

It had also become evident to people around the world that Coronavirus was akin to Spanish flu, an infection that occurs once in a century, that will have a devastating effect on the entire planet. I began to notice that people around me had become very circumspect and started carrying hand sanitizers along with them. Let me state here that, as a person, I get sensitized to issues a bit later than my peers.

But when it began to sink in me that I was living when history was being made, I began to flinch. When I realized that I was not without company at this watershed moment for the world at large and that most citizens of this planet were also as much part of it, I stopped feeling victimized. It, however, felt strange when I looked at the strangely empty roads. It was as if I was having a long-lasting dream, and this feeling, truth be told, has not yet gone away.

Now, I have begun to accept that life will not be 'normal' as it was only a couple of months ago. I have yet to come to terms with the fact that social distancing will be the new normal and the face of air or rail travel is going to change forever. There are many more things that will not be the same in the days to come. They are hard to foresee right now. Not only for me but millions of others globally.