Self Love

By Bhargsetu Sharma

Like everyone else, my lockdown story has two sides. Professional and personal. My professional life has seen a huge relief in a way that animal accidents have reduced to 80%, but animal cruelty has surprisingly increased in this period.
 
About the social change — people have been spending more time with themselves now, but we can observe that they have become easily irritable. Being with oneself isn't a comfortable place to be at, for many people.
 
For instance, if there's a compromised situation at home, their frustration vents up. When they go outside, the poor animals become their victims. Poor barking dogs are the easiest targets here.
 
If one has noticed, domestic violence and suicide rates have increased throughout the country. I have also received many depressed and suicidal messages on my social media account. People want to talk to me. And among many things, I have been told by a lot of people, that they aren't able to cope up with everything going on. 
 
I try my best to take care of them and talk to them. I don't console them. I try to counsel them because as a social worker, I feel responsible for assisting them professionally.
 
About the pros of lockdown — it did not hinder my work because I had the permission to move around and rescue. I'm also thankful to the police officers as they helped and allowed me to pass through. They've even helped me with my work at times when I wasn't able to do it myself.
 
I find that the best thing about lockdown is that there's a steadily increasing segment of people who have started empathizing with animals. They now know how it feels to be caged. We have sent fewer animals to foster care in this period, as many people offered to take care of the animals themselves.
 
Since April 2018 I had been travelling a lot, many times for five days a week. I needed a long break. So, the lockdown has helped me a lot in distancing myself from the world. I can now bounce back with more passion and vigour. Overall, it has been a positive experience.
 
In conclusion, the message I would give out during this lockdown is simple. We try so hard to seem creative on social media, but we have failed despicably in making our family happy, our real surroundings.

We have isolated ourselves. We stay locked up in our rooms all day and socialize virtually. But are we aware of how our parents are coping up? They must want something from us. Little time, love and attention, but we seem to be too busy for that. This introspection helped me realize that we should accept ourselves the way we are. We should not try hard to create a deceptive image on social media. Also, our families need us more than social media does.

Penned down by - Angel Christian, Shreya Gokhale & Nishant