The worst thing about a lockdown for a moderately privileged middle-class person in India is the lack of easy access to alcohol and the nonexistence of delivery people for fast food. After all, once you are used to an easy-going lifestyle, without any pressure to prep healthy food, eating whatever you want whenever you want occasionally, lockdowns are times when you start to crave food which you wouldn’t order in the first place normally. Thus, you crave cheesy pizzas despite being lactose intolerant, desserts despite having a family history of diabetes and cigarettes despite quitting a couple of years ago. Life is definitely harder when you have to keep away from things you wouldn’t want anyway.

The best thing about a lockdown, if you are an introvert, is the lack of people and social bonding. If you are an extrovert, it’s the worst. And if you are an introvert living with an extrovert, things are much worse because you have to empathize with the extrovert for the lack of company, despite bursting into your favorite lonely song inside.

Of course, you miss your parents whom you hardly call, miss friends you didn’t talk to in years, think about all the holidays you wouldn’t have taken anyways, and make promises you will never keep. Hey, but feelings are important. Also, the sky was never so blue, and the birds were never that loud and melodious, and the serenity and tranquility of the lack of people were never so profound. Maybe, a yearly lockdown is what we really need for holidays, rather than an obnoxiously loud religious festival. But then, people would find a reason to go out and congregate and bang thalis to celebrate peace and social distancing. After all, man is a social animal.