Lockdown Day 20

Dear Diary,

Today is the twentieth day of the countrywide lockdown against Corona. Tomorrow is the last day of the first spell of the lockdown. Under the circumstances, the prime minister may announce a further extension of the lockdown till 30th Apr '20. This is the only remedy at present to save our people from the pandemic. Hopefully, after the second spell of the lockdown, we will be almost winning in our fight against Corona.

Today the country is celebrating the harvest festival of Baisakhi. It was this day that Guru Gobind Singh formed the Khalsa. It is also celebrated as the harvest festival, which brings in new hope and energy after months of toiling in the fields. Likewise, we expect that our fight against Corona will bear fruits and we will be able to venture out freely in a Corona free world.

Today, with the help of my younger sister, Sushma, I got the contact number of one of my childhood friends after thirty years gap! I called him very ecstatically. He responded with awe at hearing my voice. We recalled various moments from our school and college days, which filled our hearts with unlimited joy. Inderjit, my friend was sorry that we were out of touch for so many years. Just after college, we could have shared many more moments of joy together had we remained in touch. But India is a big country where people got lost easily in the absence of help from the now ubiquitous mobile phones. Ours of the seventies borne will be the last generation with lost friends! Inderjit told me with a heavy heart about the closure of the school in which we studied. Time changes many things and if we are out of touch with time for quite long, then these changes seem to be unbearable at a later date.

Further, I learned a lesson today that friendships have to be nurtured constantly for the bond to have fragrance even after many years. Someone wrote, "Friends are not porcelain and crystal, that can be wrapped in a newspaper and put away, to be taken out as and when required. I will take them the tulips from my garden and apricots from my trees." Fortunately, the bond that I shared with Inderjit is still live after a long gap of thirty years.

It is my good luck that I got so much joy in finding a lost friend and shared the golden moments in these distressing times. I hope and wish that others are also able to find such joys to tide over the gloomy times.