{"id":68264,"date":"2020-03-29T23:40:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T04:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=68264"},"modified":"2020-03-29T23:53:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T04:53:08","slug":"sri-lankan-author-sunila-galappati-launches-an-online-journal-to-collate-stories-about-life-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown-over-30-entries-so-far-from-many-countries-including-u-k-india-jamai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=68264","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankan Author Sunila Galappati Launches an Online Journal to Collate Stories about Life During the “Coronavirus” Lockdown; Over 30 Entries so Far From Many Countries Including U.K., India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Portugal, Germany, Sri Lanka and Australia."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow did you Kashmiris survive the lockdown for six months?\u201d Almost everyone who met or called Nurat Maqbool after the \u2018Janata Curfew\u2019 last Sunday asked her, according to an account she wrote in the \u2018Lockdown Journal\u2019, an online platform launched by a Colombo-based editor-writer to record stories of the lockdown worldwide in the time of the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n

Kashmiris have seen lockdowns \u201cevery other week for the last three decades\u201d. But this one, which she experienced in Bengaluru, was not the same. \u201cThe lockdown was there [in Kashmir] but it was for a small area and the rest of the world was happy and thriving. Sometimes all of that gives you hope that things will be better for you as well. But in the lockdown of the world, there is no escape,\u201d she wrote on March 22 in the journal.<\/p>\n

The journal [lockdownjournal.com], launched by Sunila Galappatti, went live on March 20, and has over 30 entries so far, including from the U.K., India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Portugal, Germany, Sri Lanka and Australia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The entries are typically short, first person narratives of a full day. While COVID-19 is the running theme, the stories are both similar and different, depending on who and where the writers are.<\/p>\n

Eloghosa Osunde, in Abuja, Nigeria, writes about downloading an app used for group video chats. \u201cIt is F\u2019s birthday today,\u201d she wrote on March 25, apparently about a friend in Lagos. They chat about assorted things \u2014 like earrings and live concerts. They laugh and Ms. Osunde sleeps well that afternoon. She wakes up, works on a playlist and goes about with tasks she\u2019d assigned herself. She realises: \u201cEverything is uncertain, everywhere. But where I am, there\u2019s a more specific terror… it\u2019s the poverty capital of the world, which means that what works for most of the world won\u2019t work for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together in crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n

On what triggered the journal that curates accounts of a day in the life of someone, somewhere, Ms. Galappatti says: \u201cWe are actually in all moments together as a world, but our connection to someone far away is less visible, less palpable. It struck me here was a moment where we were very consciously all in the same crisis together.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cAt the same time, I find it very dispiriting that it is the nation state that we are falling back on \u2014 because it is the infrastructure we have. So we are closing our borders, we are counting within countries. I wanted some way for us to reach across that (safely).\u201d<\/p>\n

The journal, describing itself as \u2018Solidarity from at least two metres away\u2019, is an attempt to try and make sense of this together, to have people share their experiences across contexts, and hopefully discover how people are experiencing it elsewhere. The exercise is open-ended at the moment, with no specific plan for the content that might accumulate, or a visible deadline. Also, Ms. Galappatti is aware that the journal is necessarily written by those least under pressure in this crisis. Those who have \u201cthe shelter, sustenance, and the mind-space\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another reason drives her effort. \u201cWe are still living a little breathlessly, because that is what we know how to do. We are still online, offering expertise and one-upmanship in virtue. Yet, we are in a situation that we haven\u2019t actually been in before. I thought, what about a quiet, gentle place where we tell stories of ourselves that we may not understand till much later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most entries are everyday stories, simply told as they happened to someone. Reading them, you get a now-familiar sense of the general feeling world over, but also a rarer glimpse of the specific.<\/p>\n

BBC news journalists, like their counterparts elsewhere, are \u201cessential workers\u201d. That is why Charles Haviland left for work on March 24 in London. He took the Tube \u2014 less crowded than usual but not empty enough for comfort \u2014 and reached the New Broadcasting House. The few who turned up were sitting, separated by empty desks. A colleague distributed oranges, another offered cartons of skimmed milk that he got from a caf\u00e9 upstairs, just before it shut down.<\/p>\n

After what has now become a \u2018usual news day\u2019\u2014 of death tolls and soaring cases \u2014 Mr. Haviland was ready to leave. \u201cIt is night when I head for home. By Warren Street station, six or seven people, probably homeless, are gathered much too close together. But what comfort can they find apart from each other? They are talking not in English but in… which eastern European language? I can\u2019t get close enough to tell,\u201d he wrote about his day.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meera Srinivasan \u201cHow did you Kashmiris survive the lockdown for six months?\u201d Almost everyone who met or called Nurat Maqbool after the \u2018Janata Curfew\u2019 last Sunday asked her, according to an account she wrote in the \u2018Lockdown Journal\u2019, an online platform launched by a Colombo-based editor-writer to record stories of the lockdown worldwide in …<\/p>\n

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