Page 7 - My Lockdown Diary

going to give a life’s learning or at least some much needed fun in this lockdown and in-turn give to
me some readers. So, letting not the thrill fade, let’s journey through the world of schooling.

With the Corona strengthening its grip onto this world; schools, colleges, universities turned lifeless.
To add to this was the pressure on future aspirants. So finding no good solution, schools, colleges and
all shifted online, pushing us all into digital world. E-learning, as felt by modern generation, is an
effective way, rapidly educating the huge workforce. It makes concept-visualization easier through
video-imagery. It also helps students interact online with world’s best educators residing miles away
and hence providing quality-education to even the remotest areas, provided you have a good internet
connection. Moreover, live-session recordings help us to catch up tough concepts keeping pace with
our learning speed. It saves class-time removing all interruptions, obliquely directing the learners to
be disciplined and punctual. It allows the academically unsound ones to make the teacher explain a
topic thousand times, without disturbing the teacher even for once, simply replaying it again and
again. The list grows on endlessly but to be very honest, during this pandemic situation, online
learning has helped the frustrated students to rise up with a new hope. It is helping us to carry
forward with our academic tempo. It has also helped us to cover our lagging courses in due time and
is working the best aid in the pandemic. It is safeguarding the aspiring youths from breaking into
depression and sorrow. It has let us sit back in comfort and safety but still carry on with a beam of
hope, hope to not let our morale be down but together fight the corona bracing our national motto of
“ Jaan Bhi Jahan Bhi”.

That’s all what the technical world says. But to be very frank, I feel online classes, whatever good
network or app we use; runs short of few steps, imitating offline classes. It may be a perfect
substitution for original schooling but never an exact copy since it cannot recreate the same
atmosphere, as there offline; Somewhere that comfort feels missing and hence again recollecting ‘The
Fun They Had’, seems to speak volumes that however advanced we become, our root is still connected
to that old-school pattern. It reflected how the schoolness of the school, hardly some feet away, was
lost and how the characters yearned for freedom from loneliness, tasting real fun. So now when I
have been gripped into this process for so long, I feel the quote -“Nothing ever becomes real, till its
Experienced”, quite true and feel for that little girl in the story. Poor girl, she never got the
opportunity to get sometime tangible, sometime at least beyond virtuality. And now when I am on the
verge of stepping into higher secondary, I feel for my childhood days, I left behind; crying deep inside
my heart, soul and my mind.

Now, it feels enough, enough for at least a handful experiences, and enough of debate with my dear
granny, making her understand the need of the mobile now with me or sitting hours, front of the
computer screen; all for the sake of studying, studying and studying. Well I won’t go into controversy
about what online schooling brought to us, but overall it had been a great companion giving us at
least something in this period of nothing. But still my heart bleeds, my lungs suffocate, my mind
shrinks and my inner soul tears a thousand tears to see the world back on tract so that once again I
am able to greet my loving teachers, spot mischievousness beneath the calm eyebrows of my friends,
sense-out togetherness of team-games and at the long last breathe in the pleasant breeze standing at
my school-ground, with the sun rays peeping through the dense cloud.

- SAYAK MAJI