Life In The Times Of Corona short story

My Lockdown Love Affair With 'Text' Since 2020

( words)
*For representational purpose only.

EK TEXT KI KAHAAANI.

The past two years, what I can say, have possibly been the most beautiful, enriching, introspective, and loved years. From being locked up in our own houses to slowly overcoming our fears, we have all come a long way.

Our journeys have been different and I can already envision that in 5 years, we would be sitting at a family gathering, remembering and laughing about the Dalgona coffee phase, or making reels phase, or f***ing our sleep schedule phase.

Even though we say that the entire world was under lockdown and it came to a standstill, but daily we were either working or creating memories with our family and friends. We all evolved and I think we all did it beautifully - to the best of our capabilities and resources.

Some of us lost our jobs, homes, pets, perspective on things in life. We lost someone we loved and dealt with the grief of not being able to see or touch or hear that person ever again. But something else also happened in 2020, not only humans but also our workspaces evolved with us. With the ‘work from home concept’, families got closer than ever.

Redefining our lives, we overcame our fears and understood that life is never going to be as it was in 2019. There was one thing that we all had in common was HOPE. Every time I spoke to my friends or family, they would all say “one day we’ll all meet and do this and that”.

This year also taught me the importance of a “text”. The simplest and the easiest way of staying connected in 2020-21 is through the new letter writing format, also called ‘texting’. “Hi, Kaisi Hai?”. That’s all. From a simple 'how are you', we would go on for hours and hours texting back and forth talking about the new Netflix series, revisiting school gossip and rumors, anxiety about what are we doing with our lives and are we ever going to achieve even a quarter of what we wanted. It's ironic how our generation works. We say we hate writing and yet keep writing to each other the entire day.

In the most unpredictable year of our lives, my friends and I connected through these text messages and became each other’s strengths. In the most unpredictable year of life, my friends unpredictably found ‘love’ just by texting. That’s the power of a text. It can either make you fall in love with someone or ruin your relationship also. I usually hear people say ‘The vibe of the message was such…..’. In this unpredictable year, we have learned to predict how the tone of the message was and can predict the emotion the other person is going through.

I can do it. When my friend writes ‘I feel anxious’, I do feel for her and help to calm her down through a text. That’s the power of a text. It can either calm the other person down or not so much. The power of text lies in our hands and mind.

So, here is to the new four-letter word that let’s us stay connected for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us apart -‘Text’.

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