What to do when you have nothing to do!

How to stay sane, occupied, and socially connected while physically distant

A lockdown offers many people a completely new experience, a situation where our physical contact with the world is suspended. For those of us who are privileged enough to be at home with seemingly nothing new to do, the question of what to do with our time arises. Time we would otherwise dedicate to commuting to work, cultural experiences, eating out, and most of all, being with friends and family, is all unoccupied.  In our current situation,  when many people are feeling disconnected from their social support systems, or want to build new ones, what are some of the best options to stay connected and physically distant? A hug is out of the question if you live alone, but a virtual hug from a community might be the next best thing!

Entertainment and cultural experiences:

Live online sessions have become the norm across social media and organisational websites. There’s something for everyone! The Kalakshetra Foundation has been organising classical Indian music sessions on their Youtube channel since 6th April. The HCL Concerts-Baithak have been organised for a period of 60 days, with 25 artists performing Indian classical music live on Facebook (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Some of these live sessions are raising funds for COVID-19 related efforts, while others are focusing on fundraising for artists who have lost their livelihood. These organisations and independent artists regularly conduct live Q&A sessions, challenges, and more to try and promote cultural experiences and experiments at this time!

From live online comedy (Stay Home for India), Instagram live musical concerts (Rolling Stone India, Together at  Home–WHO and Global Citizen partnership), to Andrea Bocelli’s concert, to the Bolshoi Theatre’s broadcasts of several performances in the past month, it appears that there is more to experience online from various cultures than we could ever have in person! The Royal Opera House also shares wonderful videos. There are so many different kinds of performances to discover now. Find more classical music options here!                                                                                     

There are numerous world-famous museums which have opened virtual gallery tours now, apart from the diverse collections which were already on display on Google Arts and Culture! Check them out while on a call with your friends and experience the rooms while trading your thoughts.

Social media:

 As a result of being homebound, an astounding number of creative challenges have happened to emerge across social media, from cooking, dancing, to drawing, and music. Apart from watching and interacting with everyone else, challenges have sprung up with ways to occupy time for anyone who is concerned their days are too monotonous!

Everyone is engaging more with the global community, and imaginations are brimming. Various creative endeavours have appeared on social media for practically everything. Recipe-sharing with limited items and tips for motivating yourself to stay at peace with meditation, yoga, or even rousing games of online charades or Antakshari are frequently in progress. 

Online games:

Games where friends can play in private rooms while also talking on a call have become even more popular. Since playing with friends is off the table, there are games instead which encourage strangers to play a round of Pictionary, Scrabble or Ludo! “Scribbl.io, Sketchit, and Codenames seem to be pretty well-known,” says Purvil Jani, whose board game group has shifted online. Fortnite, Minecraft, RuneScape, and many more have experienced an inflow of players. There are plenty of options for every kind of platform, but try to join those with an emphasis on the cooperative aspect of the game!

Video calls:

Adopting and adapting video calling on various apps and channels has become routine for many people in the world now, and inventive uses of video calling are at the forefront. Zoom has a feature to share your screen and draw,  some are adapting this for online Pictionary, while others are using the platform to learn, to celebrate birthdays, and even for online dates. Many platforms for conference calls are being used extensively to support work and recreation in a way that has not taken place on a global scale before. This does suggest we could continue with these accessible options as a way to promote the inclusion of those who might not be able to show up in person to various meetings, classes, or even celebratory events!

Pen pals around the world:

For those who are avid explorers of other cultures, or who want to practise their foreign language skills, the option of a pen pal has been resurrected from the dead! Virtual pen pals are increasingly easier to find, with many platforms allowing international communication to thrive. From extensively using social media, people are talking to those they might never have otherwise met in their daily lives! After using the Tinder Passport option for free during April 2020, Rohit Singla said, “It was very interesting, this was my first experience talking to someone completely unknown, from a very different culture. And it also made me realise, they are not so different.” At this time in our history, recognising our shared experiences is more important than ever. 

Pick whatever excites you, and try it out now! The option to go on a virtual live safari with your friends is open too! Maybe there is more time in the day for something new. If not, add in a live music concert to your exercise time, or practise cooking while on a video call with friends! Be inventive, or stick to the things you already love, whatever makes you feel most able to cope with this pandemic! To get more ideas, specifically for things you can do by yourself, check out this list!

This piece appears on covid-gyan.in, check it out for all your science-based COVID-19 information! 

 

 

 

The best feeling in the world

I love getting my hair cut. There is nothing like the feeling of a new hairstyle and the crisp ends of your hair brushing your neck. I love the idea that I get to change my hairstyle, even if I do go back to the old one in a couple of days.

As I was riding home today, I spontaneously decided I was going to go get the haircut I have been pining for these past few weeks. I dropped my bag off at home, grabbed my helmet, changed my footwear, took my wallet out of my bag, and I was ready in a snap of a finger. I hopped back on the bike and took off, naturally indicating and honking the horn as and when required to remain a cautious but excited motor-cyclist.

Though it took the lady a whole five minuted to cut my hair, I felt I got my money’s worth as I brushed it later.

For some reason, I associate a new haircut with a new start, don’t ask me to what! A haircut has just as much power as the first day of a vacation, you feel like you can do anything, even though you know, as a rational person– there are limits to ‘anything’.

The best part is that you can get a haircut whenever you want, an option sadly lacking from the whole vacation situation.

Reciprocal Hand-me-downness, a thing I think I just invented

For want of inspiration, I am going to write about hand-me-downs. I think that we all have something in our closets that is a hand-me-down, maybe an antique piece of jewelry or an elder sibling’s jacket. Whatever they are, these hand-me-downs, are parts of other people that we carry with us.

Taking the idea of hand-me-downs in a less literal sense, there are lots of hand-me-downs we get from our family- unusual mannerisms,  funny food habits, a dislike for horror films, pretty much anything that we greatly resemble those people in.

It’s not just family members, there are hand-me-downs we get from friends, maybe not in the traditional sense, but things that we pick up in the course of the relationship, be they items of clothing or phrases that we have heard too many times to resist using them ourselves.

The people who have these hand-me-down relationships usually also have something I would like to call ‘reciprocal hand-me-downness’, which implies that both the parties give something to one another. For instance, I used to get a lot of my older brother’s clothes when I was little, and as we grew older, there were a lot of phrases that I picked up or made up, which he began to copy (mainly to annoy me). 

I see this happening in all my connections with other people and I wonder if hand-me-downs have come to mean an exchange that affects both the involved people in different ways, and one may benefit more from it this time around, but what about the next time?

Note: ‘Hand-me-downness’ has been used before, but my contribution is the idea of reciprocity in a hand-me-down system.