Journal (Beginning of Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020)

The stock market had started its movement by the mid of February 2020 in response to the coming Covid-19 pandemic. The people had already started discussing it as the Indian stock market indices such as Nifty50 and Sensex would be hitting lower circuit every other day. There was some fear and uncertainty related to it even in my mind but because of the nature of the indices, the exchanges such as NSE and BSE and the regulatory body SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) I had the confidence that markets would soon be correcting themselves by going up in response to the panic, fear, pull-out and profit-booking that was happening in the stock market in the one and a half months that ended on 23rd March. 
Till the mid of March, the managers in my workplace were of the opinion that Covid-19 was only a flu and that its mortality rate was so low that it should not be a source of worry. People had already started to move out of the city to their hometowns. I was still visiting the office till the last day when only facilities, administration and HR teams were coming to take steps in view of the lockdown. According to the Wikipedia, the developments in the country for the lockdown in the beginning were as described below:

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases closed 500, Modi on 19 March, asked all citizens to observe 'Janata Curfew' (people's curfew) on Sunday, 22 March. At the end of the curfew, Modi stated: "Janata Curfew is just the beginning of a long battle against COVID-19". Following this, while addressing the nation second time on 24 March, he announced the nationwide lockdown from midnight of that day, for a period of 21 days. 

It didn’t bother me. I was paying rent for my accommodation. Moving to Delhi in a rush was not a good idea in my view. I didn’t want to be in Mayur Vihar, I didn’t want to go to Tri Nagar. If I was going to be in a lockdown, I would never want to be locked in neither place. I needed time to spend on my studies and personal development, so I stayed in Chandigarh. 
It was a completely new life initially. I had started with gym in February. I was eating a lot of food to be in shape according to my workouts. All this was preparation for my sister Anu’s wedding that was going to happen in the last week of February. 
 on 26th
With the pandemic there was no gym, no going out, no physical activity. I was going to have problems related to food as I didn’t know cooking. I never even had to boil water for myself. 
I spent my days in room reading and coding. Whenever I would be in a tough situation, my initial response would be to pick up a book on how to solve that problem. During this time, I had read books on investment such as the “Essays of Warren Buffett”, “Little book of common-sense investing” by John C Bogle, “Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig, etc. Some of them I read again and summarized as these were the books that I had read to gain understanding about the money investment. 
For food, I had reached out to my floormate Amir Wassaf. On the first day of lockdown, he took me out to grocery shopping. He used to cook for everyone, and we would eat on the floor above with Sanjay dada (a Bengali). I got to know these people, Amir, Sanjay and Nazish (Amir’s brother) in these tough times. Sanjay Dada’s room is a nice room, pretty spacious with a big balcony at the back and a small one at the front at the entrance. Being also on the top floor gave the room a nice appeal.
My view of outside world was through the WhatsApp where my friends from BITS Pilani would keep posting about the politics and this time about the pandemic. It was not a nice experience in between those discussions as there would be a lot of fighting when people with strong opinions and emotions would confront each other. There would be discussions about whatever theatrics and drama Modi was doing. Such as these:

% The Janata Curfew (People's curfew) was a 14-hour curfew on 22 March (from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.). Every person was required to obey the curfew, with exceptions for people of "essential services" such as police, medical services, media, home delivery professionals and firefighters. At 5 p.m. that day, all citizens were asked to stand in their doorways, balconies or windows, and clap their hands or ring their bells in appreciation for the professionals delivering these essential services.

% On 5 April, citizens all over India cheered and showed solidarity with the health workers, police, and all those fighting the disease by switching off the electric lights at home for 9 minutes from 9:00 p.m. to 9:09 p.m. and observed lighting diya (handheld oil lamp), candle; and flashing torchlight and mobile flashlight.

Discussions about such activities in the WhatsApp was, more often than not, a source of stress.
After the mid of April, I had identified a hotel named Ajit Punjabi Hotel near my house. I would go there for all my meals and it was a big relief as I did not have to depend on anyone.
For my physical activity, I would go out for running, or body weight workout in the nearby parks.
At office, the project work was going to pick up pace again as managers were winding up with enabling the employees to work from home.

Ref: COVID-19 lockdown in India
Time taken: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Nazish: Nazish Farhan