April – the month where flowers begin to bloom, spring is at our door and we look forward to seeing nature getting refreshed. This April is quite different. Though April has a nice tone to its name, it was not that nice to us!
The pandemic situation hit us earlier this year but the effect seems to become severe in April, for me at least. We were not allowed to go outside except grocery, medical or bank purposes, and guests are not allowed to come at anybody’s home. The street, park, shopping malls, everything seems like a deserted and haunted town. I wonder where COVID-19 had hit hard, how ominous those places look because Australia was not even affected that much by this virus.
At the start it was okay. We thought it would be fun to stay home together, having more time to chill. I can finally read all the books on my TBR pile or watch the tv series and movies on ‘My List’. This energy did not last even a week. Imposition is a system where you do not enjoy the things you like to do usually because you are bound to do. The right of choice is snatched away by a virus and we realize how weak we are in front of a tiny invisible entity. It taught us we should never ever take anything for granted. Especially the ‘stay at home’ things started taking a toll on my mental health thinking about my parents residing in another country where the community and government are not that aware of the intensity of the pandemic situation.
However, I get to learn and grow in this situation a lot and venture into so many positive things. Let’s begin the list of positivity April has given me-
Made a Blog Site from Scratch:
I think this is one of the proudest moments of my life that I have built this blogsite and launch it with very minimal help from my friend and mighty internet. Here I am, not a tech-savvy person but YouTube and Google became my best friend in this new journey and help me to build this beautiful site (Yes! I call my site beautiful because it is!). I just want to post my daily boring yet relatable adventures somewhere and writing had always been an open gate to let my negative aura out and welcome everything optimistic – so the decision of giving my write-ups a bigger platform was always somewhere back in my mind. I am just so proud that I make this happen finally and built it from scratch – almost totally by myself.
Meowread to The Half Sylheti:
This physical social distancing pushes me to embrace the virtual social distancing and I was ready for it. April is the month when I left my old bookstagram Id @meowread and shift into @the_half_sylheti – the same name as my blog. I started interacting with people more, giving more time behind creating content, and at the end of April, I have seen the result in a very positive way. People from the Bookstagram community are so welcoming and humble and they shower me with genuine appreciation over my contents, insta blogs, stories. I learned to open up more, put my thought for the outside world, and the people over there make me so comfortable that I will be always grateful to them. It was a big step for me to put myself out there I am so glad I did that.
Netflix & Chill Review:
Not a movie buff but yah! I love watching tv shows, movies, docs, and people around me always come to me for honest reviews and want recommendations from me. On Instagram I started a series called ‘Watch It or Skip It?’ and many kinda appreciate this series.
I invest my time in watching more documentaries, movies, tv shows. I want to be very honest with my reactions towards these entertainment mediums thus I do not watch anything by force or newly released.
The content series gets my great raw reaction as I go with my flow and pick whatever I am watching totally on my mood. I have watched so far various shows but review only two or three things on Instagram but the responses were great and overwhelmed me.
Reading in a Book Slump:
Not everything was positive in my life if you are thinking by reading so far that, ‘Hmm, This chic gets her shit together!’. NO! I am not. I hit a book slump after like 9 years or 10. I am the kind of person who reads 100-200 pages every day. I sacrifice my bedtime and read books because they are food for my soul. This constant staying at one place put me in a slump. I could not read anything. I was constantly jumping from one book to another, try audiobooks, podcast, tv adaptations- nothing worked for me. That might be another reason I got to watch this many movies and tv series but this slump gives me a break that I might need and did not even realize it. It lasted only two weeks and I still get to finish 4 books. Not bad, huh?
More time with Shyreen:
The ‘stay at home’ does not make any big difference in my life as I am a ‘stay home mum’ but this time is hard for Shyreen. She was agitated (still is), becoming more dependent on screen and I got the chance to spend more time with her to tame her down, make the confided situation a bit easy for her. It was a new chance to bond with her where everybody in our home needed their own space but need each other too. Shyreen helped me to grow as a mum at this time a lot. I have found ways to use minimal things to make toys and play with her, teach her to help me with chores and we both have evolved through this a lot.
Pohela Boishakh & Ramadan:
For us Bangalis, April is a month of festivity because we have our Bengali New Year on 14th April. It is one of the main festivals we celebrate wherever we are in the world by wearing White and Red saree, White Kurta, by making some real desi food, deserts. In Bangladesh, people from all religions, class, sex are on the road joining a colorful procession singing songs, holding masks, wearing flowers. COVID-19 held us under our roof this year but it could not captivate our spirit and this spiritual universal celebration added a new dimension in our culture. Throughout the internet, I had seen people wearing festive clothes and preparing foods in Pohela Boishakh and celebrated it in their own way. It was mind-blowing and very peaceful.
Ramadan is a big part of Muslim Culture. It is an Arabic month when we fast from sunrise to sunset and the reason behind it is very beautiful. The God Almighty wanted us to feel the hunger that is suffered by less privileged people of the society and we get the chance to cleanse our soul in a spiritual way this month. Ramadan started in April too and COVID -19 impacted it as well. We are used to iftar parties, share our foods with the less privileged ones but this year Ramadan is different. I think we get a better excuse to connect with God in this Ramdan and be very mindful of and grateful for what we are eating, what we are doing.
April was not so friendly but with time we learn to swim and we swim with the flow. The world lost many beautiful souls this month either normally or by this Corona Virus. As a Bollywood buff, I am so sorry for the loss of two veteran actors at the last of April – Irfan Khan & Rishi Kapoor. The movie industry in India can never fill up these gaps and my heart will always remember them for great movies like Lunch Box and Mulk.
Death news makes us numb. Tore our heart apart and I know more bad news is on the way. But you know what comes along with the bad news? The hope of hearing tons of Great News.