lockdown tales

Lockdown for me has been a very interesting journey , but now that  we are finally moving to normalcy – I thought why not reflect on how transforming the past year has been.

Staying at home gave me so much time to think , think and overthink every decision I’ve made in my life , few of them I was proud of and a few decisions I wanted to slap myself for.

However , the same overthinking made me realise that no matter how much I cringe when I think of those decisions , I wouldn’t have been the same if it wasn’t for those.

And for a person who barely stays at home I made some crazy decisions and did some very unexpected things during the lockdown. 

Around May, June our house help also left for a while , so my dad and I ended up doing all the work in the house – my dad mopped the house and cleaned  the bathrooms while I cleaned the dishes & put the clothes for wash , the rest of the stuff that needed to be taken care of basically was forgotten about.

Appudu anipinchindi , Naveen Pollisetty was 100% right when he said “ maa panimanishi yadama ki oka gudi katali anipistundi “ annapudu.

I even tried cooking – when I say go big or go home I mean it.

 I was at home ; but I definitely went big. 

Normally when people start cooking they start with making rice or an omelet , but I go big so I started with paneer kebab ( which I found in the trash the next day morning , so you know how that went )

And while all my friends started learning the guitar and the ukulele I sat home watching Netflix.

However thanks to Haripadma Atha and my back pain I started doing yoga!

And trust me I cannot emphasise enough on how much my life has changed ever since , waking up and taking a bath immediately felt weird after 5 months into lockdown but it did incorporate discipline into my life.

I can’t sleep in the afternoon so waking up early gave me so much time throughout the day – that I started doing online courses , I even did a masterclass by tan France on styling and I realised how much I enjoy doing that ; and now when I’m bored I just pick out clothes from my closet and style them.

Furthermore , towards the end of the year I had finished reading two amazing books:

The power of nunchi & The secret 

These books introduced me to such new and beautiful concepts like manifestation. Which I slowly started to believe in.

And finally on new years day I read this one write up which sums up everything about last year , the ups , the downs , the mistakes and the realisations.

Now read the next few lines ; let it sink in your heart and live in your head.

“It has been one of the greatest and difficult years of my life. I learnt that everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learnt love is about giving. Everything. And letting it hurt. I learnt vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so difficult to remain soft. I learnt all things come in twos. Life and death. Pain and joy. Salt and sugar. Me and you.it is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good.  Making friends out of strangers. Making strangers out of friends. Learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix about everything. And for pains it can’t there will always be my mothers arms. We must learn to focus on warm energy. Always. Soak our limbs into it and become better lovers to the world. If we can’t learn to be kinder to each other how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate part of ourselves?” -Rupi kaur

Now I know we are already two months in to this new year but it’s never too late to wish for the best right?

NUNCHI

Apart from the storybooks I had read during my childhood, I haven’t read much. The last time I tried to read a book it took me 4 months or so to finish it, but this time I finished ‘The power of Nunchi ‘ in 4 days.

And what fascinated me about this book is that it’s about Korean culture and upbringing which seemed quite captivating.

70 years ago after a war, South Korea was one of the poorest countries , and now it has become one of the richest , coolest and the most technologically advanced country.

And K-POP was another thing (though I’m not it’s biggest fan) which roused my curiosity to know why it was such a big thing.

Why did it become so popular in so many different countries? And why do people die over these bands ?

As the book says , the answer to these questions is nunchi.

Nunchi in my words is a subtle art of eye measuring everyone in the room while reading their energies , and how you should conduct yourself in tune with the opposite person. This book is all about how to achieve that.

An anecdote from the author’s life described in the book sort of stuck with me.

The author Euny Hong , accidentally offended  her family friend , and while defending herself to her father Euny said , “ I didn’t mean to upset Jinny’s mother “ to which her father replied “ The fact that the harm wasn’t intentional doesn’t make it better , it makes it worse.”

And she then thinks about it the other way 

“Children who choose to be mean at least know what they hope to achieve by it, whether that’s getting even with a sibling or winding up a parent. But a child who doesn’t even know what consequences their words have on people ?”

Children who are not aware of what they are doing and the consequences of it ? It is likely that they end up hurting themselves or the other person.

And that made me understand that nunchi is also a lot about self awareness .

One more point that appealed to me is what Euny  says in the middle of the book  about  empathy.  We have often heard that empathy is a most valued quality everyone must inculcate categorically. But Euny says empathy is extremely overvalued and “ the road to hell is paved with empathy”. This has given me a new insight and as a person who has suffered on account of my empathetic nature I could relate to it almost instantaneously. 

Putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes all the time is not going to let you be objective towards the situation and I have a handful of experiences where I hurt myself while trying to understand and help other people.

Nunchi and empathy do have a few similarities and Euny says that you need both in order to understand people.

These examples Euny used and the inspiring quotable lines in the book are what kept me reading . I could relate to the book  at several levels.

It also has some fun quizzes towards the end of every chapter  which gives the reader  quite an interactive experience.

If you  read the book then do share your thoughts about the book in the comment section.