BHOPAL: The three months of lockdown have changed everyone’s routine. Wearing masks and maintaining social distancing have become a way of life. Talking to children through video calling has also become part of some people’s life.
Free Press spoke to some residents in the city to know how the pandemic has changed their everyday life. As their children live abroad they count on WhatsApp video calling which has brought the distance near, they said. On earlier occasions, they often talked to their children. But now, they regularly do it. This is the major change the lockdown has brought about in their routine.
Excerpts:
Shalini Jain, businesswoman
My daughter Vaidehi, 23, lives in Melbourne, Australia and she is doing MBA in banking finance from there. She went there 20 days before lockdown. So, we sometimes feel that she will be with us if doesn’t go. But we talked to her video calling daily. She generally calls us at 8am to ask menu of lunch. Earlier I used to talk according to her but now it not so because our daily routine has quite changed than earlier. Maids are not coming because we have to do household and office work both. We wake in the morning and do some light exercises. Earlier, we used to do yoga in team. We do worship at home, earlier we used to go to temple.
Manoj Parmar, construction head in Sage University
We used to feel quite relax before Covid-19 but now it is not so. We do meditation and Yoga in the morning to reduce stress. My daughter Sonia, 27, lives in USA and doing MBA from University of California. We didn’t call her back because her education is still uncompleted and she will have to go back. And it can be more risky and unsafe. But we are in touch with her through video calling twice a day mainly in the morning and evening time. Frequency of call has increased than before Covid-19. Earlier, we used to call her mostly during holiday. She is fine and doing online internship from home.
Manju Gupta, businesswoman
Of course, our routine life has change a lot. I used to run a salon in Platinum Plaza but it is closed from lockdown period. My husband is a government employ so it doesn’t impact much financially. Maids are not coming so we have to change our routine a lot for household chores. But we talked to our daughter Tanya, 25, lives in Canada daily. She is doing post graduation from there. There is around eleven hour’s difference of the time of Canada and India. So we adjust our timings. We mostly talk to her after 9.30pm through WhatsApp video call and shared our problem. Our family members also joined us through conference.
Indu Arun Sharma, teacher
My daughter Muskan, 21, lives in Mauritius and she is doing MBBS from there. We are quite relaxed because Mauritius has become Covid-free. And her regular classes will start from July. But during lockdown, she used to live in hostel. She has facility of Wi-Fi there so we could connect with her any time. She is my only child so it is obvious we were in stress. But I was confident enough of my daughter and we kept ourselves positive. We generally talk to her through video call daily in the evening. So, she didn’t have to face much problem.
