I’ll start my story from the 16th of March 2020. We were somewhere in Himachal Pradesh shooting for Roadies when we got to know that the next day the whole crew was being sent home.
Well I had mixed emotions. As much as I love work, waking up at 6 am, to reach the cold cold set, the thought of going back home and seeing my husband I was quite happy.
I am not going to get into the topic of the virus and lockdown – we all know what’s happening so let me not sadden you more with that. What I want to talk about is what has happened since this whole scenario started and what my life has been like. This is my lockdown diaries.
On reaching Mumbai, Akshay, my husband made the smart decision as he always does (don’t tell him I told you so), of leaving Mumbai as soon as possible so he put Abhay, my brother in-law, me and himself in the car with our driver and we started driving to Akshay’s family home in Madhya Pradesh. It took us two days of driving to reach there and I felt like I was still on Roadies. When we packed and left we never imagined that we would have to stay here for so many many days.
Let me tell you what a typical day here for me is. I wake at approximately 10 am and make Akshay and myself big mugs of black coffee which we sit on the dining table and drink and chit chat with everyone. I make my breakfast of two fried eggs and two pieces of toast, yes everyday. Some days I jazz it up with onions and the other days chilli depending on how adventurous I’m feeling. Yes, I do it everyday and I love it everyday. After this I give it sometime and then do a 30 and sometimes 40 min workout. Anisha hooked me onto some really fun workouts on Instagram and I try my best (which is clearly not good enough) to follow it.
We eat lunch together and then retire to our rooms to either read or watch a series.
I have been reading quite a bit and here is the list of books some that I have finished and some I’m yet to finish:
1. John Grisham – The Guardian
2. Jeffrey Archer – Heads You Win
3. Serial Killers (for some reason no name of writer on the book)
4. Spy Princess – Shrabani Basu
5. Asura – Anand Neelakantan
6. Land of the Seven Rivers – Sanjeev Sanyal (might be a kids textbook but I’m not choosy at this time).
Besides reading I have been catching up on some great shows:
1. Messiah
2. The Trial
3. Marcella
4. The Morning Show
Next on my list is Killing Eve.
Evenings we have coffee and talk while Akshay works and writes. We take turns cooking something fun and different between all the cousins. Sometimes it ends in healthy ridicule and making jokes and pretending to gag. Its all in good faith.
Moving on to my biggest challenge. I love to cook and I do it pretty well but my challenge is baking. Akshay’s birthday is around the corner and I want to bake him a cake so that’s something I’m looking forward to. Not sure how much the family will look forward to eating it. He himself is a great baker so I just hope I don’t embarrass myself!
Once a week the youngsters in the house, yes I’m putting myself in that category too, we get together and chill. We spend some time together have a couple of drinks and try not to let the fact that we haven’t left the house for over a month bother us. To be honest I’m privileged and really am thankful for everything we have. We have food, we have water and we have company and I have my husband with me, there isn’t anything I could ask for. We worry about our parents but I know they are fine. They have each other and as soon as life goes back to normal I’ll travel to check on them and of course, to eat my moms cooking.
Make sure to check out our Instagram and Instagram stories for all our adventures. We have been reading you response to all the lockdown questions and its been lovely to hear from you guys. Please come say hi on our Twitter, and like our Facebook page and most importantly, take care and stay safe. Till next time!
Photos by Kapil Khilnani
– Bidisha
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