article on life du up during lockdown
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Answer:
HEY MATE,HERE'S YOUR ANSWER
Explanation:
In our highly interconnected world, is it really possible to run away from a pandemic? This is the first question I pondered after seeking refuge in my house in the remote countryside of southern France. As I looked at the olive trees, two stories that I had read many years ago came to mind.
The first is a retelling of an ancient Mesopotamian tale called “Appointment in Samarra”. According to this story, a merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Soon afterwards, the servant ran in, white as a sheet. He said: “Master, just now in the marketplace, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd. When I looked closer, I realised that it was Death who made a threatening gesture towards me.”
Trembling with fear, the servant asked the merchant to let him borrow his fastest horse so he could flee to Samarra, a town more than one hundred kilometres away, where he believed Death wouldn’t be able to find him.
Sometime later, a bit annoyed but also curious, the merchant walked to the marketplace and found Death. He asked her why she had made such a threatening gesture. She replied, “It was only a sign of great surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
The second story, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is “The Masque of the Red Death”. It follows Prince Prospero's attempt to run from a plague known as the Red Death; retiring with the nobles of his court to one of his fortified abbeys. Locking the gates behind them, he organised a masquerade ball. But, in the midst of the revelry, a new guest made his appearance at midnight. As Prospero went to confront him and the ghoulish figure showed his face, the prince let out a scream and died. One by one, the other revellers met the same fate. The mysterious stranger was, of course, the Red Death.
The moral of both tales is that no mortal, whether a servant or a prince, can escape death. These two stories found their mark when the stonemason working in my garden informed me that his colleague has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. So much for my own attempt at running away.
PLEASE MARK ME AS THE BRAINLIEST.
Looking at little things
At the other end of the spectrum is Sweety Shalini Guria, whose day begins at 3 p.m. with cleaning the house and then some college work. A student at JNU, in the department of international relations, she couldn’t make it home to Ranchi, and misses her family. “We have three dogs, and one has just given birth to four pups; I wish I could be there,” says the 23-year-old, who shares an apartment in Katwaria Sarai with two friends.
To pass time, “We take videos of random things, and a lot of black and white photographs. We have four guitars and my friend tries to show me how to compose music.” The boys and she are in the process of setting their lockdown videos about everyday life at home, to music. It’s the little things that seem to make sense she says, echoing Mr. Sarup, though their lives couldn’t be more different. “One day it was raining and I walked to Mother Dairy early in the morning. I saw a man riding his scooty with a dog on the footboard. It made me happy.”
Rediscovering connections
Many in Delhi run their own businesses, and Viraj Mahajan is one of them – he manufactures furniture and has an interior design firm. A single father of two sons, 7 and 6, his day has become all about the kids: their morning Zoom classes (“I’m running between two rooms”) with The Shri Ram School, an afternoon ritual of drawing the curtains and putting on a movie, and an evening of badminton.
At their home off MG Road, they cook together daily, a life skill Mr. Mahajan feels is a necessity but wasn’t possible in the earlier go-go-go time. “We’ll make pesto from the basil in the garden, or pizzas from scratch; we bake bread every other day,” though they haven’t yet got into the sourdough territory that’s all the rage on social media.
“Yesterday we made an orange-chocolate cake and the boys read the recipe and measured the ingredients out,” he says, as he instructs his sons on homework, while on the phone. “The teachers are doing a wonderful job.” For instance, they’re recreating stories with background music and animal sounds.
Starting something
A few people are alone though, with work only in the interludes. Namrata Joshipura, a fashion designer with her own label, says she does have team meetings online, and they try and develop artworks and layouts, but “our stores and factory are shut. The lockdown started on a very disappointing note with multiple cancellations internationally.” To add another layer of what is already a stressful situation, Ms. Joshipura’s husband Vivek, and her daughter, Ananya, are stuck in Vancouver, Canada, where the latter goes to school. “I haven’t seen her since January,” says Ms. Joshipura, who chats with her twice a day.
With a great deal of time on her hands, she has taken up baking, and she’ll often do a tea party for one. She’s tried variations of chocolate-chip cookies, tea cake with buttered cinnamon glaze infused with Grand Marnier, and more, with suggestions from her daughter. “I have never baked in my life, because I didn’t have the time, and I thought it needed some special skill, though I did cook a lot.” She’s enjoyed learning to make a moist cake and tweaking recipes. “It’s about small, meaningful successes,” she says, adding that she delivers the goodies to neighbours often, and to hear people fighting over a last cookie is what gives her joy.
Staying engaged
For Ms. Joshipura and Mr. Sarup, fitness, in the form they were used to, has taken a hit. Both are endurance athletes, used to running long distances. Determined not to let the lockdown push them onto the couch Ms. Joshipura, who doesn’t own a television, decided to practise doing a headstand. Mr. Sarup, as the co-founder of the Delhi Runners Group, is part of a WhatsApp team of about 186 members who decide on a distance to run within the home. “It’s more fun than a run; we don’t want people to get injured inside the house,” he says. The day they got their 186th member, for instance, they decided to do 1.86 km inside the house. They also have squat and lunge challenges.
Anupriya Kapur, who lives with her father and son in Gurugram, is also putting her CrossFit training to use during the lockdown, with on-the-mat workouts. A social media influencer and also a small business co-founder of Imbue, a personal hygiene company that makes products for women, she likes the flexibility of being able to exercise any time anywhere at home. “I wear a sports bra and shorts all the time,” she says, to normalise the comfort of it in the hot summer months, something she never did before.
She also finds time to connect with people on matters of intimate hygiene to further her brand’s social connection and to engage with her close to 1 million following on Instagram. She does live sessions with experts, or organises small groups of women over Zoom. “We recently had a group from Purulia, Bengal, who were using the medium for the f
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