How to Entertain Yourself in Quarantine/Lockdown - Part 2

II Offer to iron the entire family’s laundry

Ironing is probably the only domestic chore that amazingly induces peace of mind. And ironing is never boring, offering as it does, a variety of benign challenges in different colors, shapes and sizes, through a few hours. Probably ironing is one job you can perform almost without thinking about what you are doing. It permits mindless concentration on an important chore. Even as you are ironing, you can contemplate on your friends and relatives, and drain out your resentments by varying the pressure on the garment. Even express romance with a gentle nudge with the tip of the iron, to get the colored mini kerchief to gush.

On your behalf, the iron can hiss, let out steam, flatten our opposition and iron out differences. You will be making a clenched fist every time you are erecting the iron on its base, and that helps. And if you are young and in a hurry, it can scorch you for sporting naughty thoughts when ironing colorful small garments.

In support of my contention, I can point out to something intriguing. In the old days you never met a short tempered washerman. Washing the dirty laundry of several families in public, affected a dhobi morally and spiritually and anger got built up. But his job helped dissipate the anger, as he drained all accumulated resentments through the clothes he thrashed with great vigor on the gravelly stone platform. He satisfied his strangling instincts on twisting dry the wet clothes, and his deep water-boarding tendencies immersing large garments into large buckets of frothy water. His peace doubled when loading his donkey, a role-model among medium-sized mammals for patience, standing as it does, motionless for hours digesting yesterday’s news paper, and letting out some hideous braying as an opinion on the news when appropriate, and gently awaiting its load. As for its boss, Ironing a mountain of clothes in the breezy open, away from his querulous queen, almost guaranteed the dhobi, his nirvana.

If you are a raw amateur, start with small pieces like kerchiefs, bibs, washable diapers , and progress through half pants to pants to shirts. Do not undertake ironing saris or dhothies unless you own the adjoining flat to accommodate its nether border yards away. Ironing a sari in a small room is perilous what with the sari in total disarray on the floor; you will be feeling like Dhutchaasana without the benefit of a revolving Draupathi offering hopes of a tantalizing glimpse.

III Become a ‘Doctor’ in record time

An amazing number of people, successful in vocations other than Medicine, talk of their original ambition to become a doctor. For a variety of reasons they did not, and happily for us all, the details are beyond the scope of this article. But the few who still have not given up hope, and this ambition is still in their bucket list, the Corona lockdown might offer an opportunity.

And of course here, one is not talking of becoming a doctor in modern medicine but qualifying in one of the Alternative medical systems (Complementary and Alternative Medicine, CAM). One could become a doctor in some of the lesser CAMs with study over a few weeks.

There are great advantages in choosing an alternative system 1) You can call yourself a doctor in your close circle, and always get your mother and your dependents to call you ‘ Doctor’, but for legal reasons can’t put it down in print unless within inverted commas.2) You will be trained postally, and if you are in a hurry, by speed post for a little extra. The charges for the courses are very reasonable and often negotiable. 3) As the degree is given by some self declared private body, the rules are elementary, arguable but flexible. 4) you are exempted from contact with any patients during training, there being no central clinic or hospital where these patients are gathered. Most therapies are on an adhoc basis and results may manifest after weeks and months, and precious student time cannot be wasted. 5) You may advertise in any medium any personal claims with full freedom ,as there is no ethical binding (with nothing much to bind). 6) patients will never sue you for professional negligence because with these alternate systems there is happily never any side effects ( or straight effects).

There is no prescription! No written instructions. No receipts!. And most patients are driven by faith, not common sense. You, the doctor, are the placebo that stimulates the patient’s mind to get better. Your soft talk, holding the hands of the patient, your measured shoulder massage and your apt references to Saturn in the 7 th house (in the patients horoscope) causing dyspepsia, all these count.

Happily, most of alternative systems don’t call for any large investment in books, equipment or Registration fees.. There are not too many books for most CAMs as most material is condensed into charts and pocket booklets or Palmyra leaves. The demand on equipment is minimal. Depending on your specialty, you may need- - for example , some small pins ( acupuncture), enema can medium size ( naturopathy), enema can family size (for colon washout ), one size-fit-all bi-gender urine can (Auto-urine therapy), strips of Magnet in bracelets ( Magnet Therapy), Rhinoceros horn ( Chinese traditional Medicine for erectile dysfunction); beware that this item is taboo in most countries as the rhinoceros is a threatened species with dwindling numbers (despite the horn properly attached and positioned). “Powdered horn” is sold but mostly it is grossly adulterated with ash of cremated rhinoceros dung, and is just a mild laxative with no measurable antigravity effect.

IV Listen to music.

Most of us like music because it makes us feel good. We feel good because music, makes us secrete a ‘ feel good’ chemical “dopamine” in our brain. It activates the limbic system in the brain and creates a response, like those we experience from sex, good food and addictive drugs. Music acts like a drug! Listening to music, you feel energized, feel disengaged from sad situations by sharpening your focus on the music itself. Time flies as you listen to good music and so they use it in waiting rooms to reduce complaints. Nice music in super markets make us stay back and buy more goods.

So listening to music could help mentally, shortening the long hours in quarantine or house stay in lockdowns!

If you are indifferent to any music, you might be suffering from anhedonia ( affecting 3 to 5% of humanity), you are just not touched by music of any kind and look upon it as just a “different kind of noise that you find surprisingly popular”. These people feel OK with thIs inability. They are not feeling deprived or anything. Their only suffering, it is said, is being mocked by the other people who feel these people are a little deficient and deserve sympathy, or worse, need patient tutoring in basics of music.

That will be like teaching Karate to a paraplegic!

So, I am afraid anhedonics have to look for other escape mechanisms. May be they would like Rap music, a prolonged monotonous chatter set to basic drum rhythm, a creation of urban African Americans. If it turns out anhedonics like rap, time will cease to be a problem for them; as some iconIc black rappers can perform through a whole shutdown, standing, strumming, and dancing sending rappers into raptures!

V Write your autobiography.

Remember there is one untold story within each of us - our autobiography. I can hear the questions you will throw at me. “Who is interested in my life”? “Who is going to read my autobiography? “Who will bother to publish my autobiography? Who is going to buy a copy”?

The answer to all these questions is ‘You’. After Nirad Chaudry’s “ Autobiography of an Unknown Indian”, nobody, however unknown, has mader a success of his autobiography. Just print some 100 copies for free distribution to friends, over the remainder of your life.Make it a condition for your dinner invitation.This way you will know who your true friends are, and who will help you despite your shortcomings. Also, you won’t be squandering your dinners on some unworthies. Besides, if you print hundreds of copies, you can tell friends you have a good library ( and with a smug smile, that is so becoming of you) “my own books fills half my shelves! ”. That will be God’s truth, and mother always told us speaking truth can bring immeasurable joy, and gratifying envy .

Writing is one of the most restful of professions; you can do it sinking in your sofa with a board resting across its arms, or even lying down dictating into a dictaphone.

If you have very little to write about, it is still OK. The lockdown should lift in a few weeks and you can finish the writing well in time. If you find you have a lot more to write, go ahead. Complete it during the next powerful Covid wave expected in August. We may be in for a far bigger lockdown. If you are not able to finish it due to reasons beyond anybody’s control, so be it. Be aware, there is nothing more fascinating than an unfinished autobiography! It might boost sales to the utter delight of your children.

Last piece of advice. Don’t read your written matter to the people around you after every page. The writing is for you to just kill time, and not your visitors. If you are happy with the result, towards the finishing stages, give it to a friend to read the manuscript . Write something nice about him in the book. He will be looking for it. Mention his name in the index as well, and his photograph with you when he was presentable. You may end up sharing the publishing cost with him!

VI Learn to be life of the party.

We know a few people who, ‘just like that’ slide in to be the life of the party (LOTP), This is a habit with them right from their school and college years, and they continue as LOTPs well into later years, (seen setting up animated hugs and noisy guffaws in major office events and New year galas, ). It appears that these people end up in their 60s, as cases of resistant depression, some of them even needing electric shock therapy in their terminal years as a desperate last resort to lift the depression. Ironic as it seems, many of the original ‘life of the party’ characters end up in a state of ‘life on the potty’ existence!

Sorry, this is not true. I have slipped it in because it is a delightful thought that cheers up most of us. If facts be told, most of these LOTPs get better over the years, and end up marrying the CEO’s daughter, sharing her joys and her share of premium shares besides her father’s frequent flyer miles.

If you enjoyed a transient rise in spirits bordering on ecstasy’s on reading the first paragraph, you have to be told that you have been deeply envious of the scintillating party guy, all your life. Just looking good, smelling better and dressing best have not made you the Centre of attention. Your basic modesty and shyness ( and may be lack of any special talent) have stood in the way of achieving the coveted LOTP state! The good news is that the quarantine might provide you an opportunity to become a party animal! I At parties to come, you need not any more seek other lackluster members in the group to chat with ( at parties, lackluster members seek other lackluster members so that there is no pressure on them to amuse and entertain the group.)

To become a party guy, you must do 2 things when going to one. .

1) Take some choice booze with you. And plenty of it. People who like you when they're sober will love you, once they're drunk. Make very sure YOU don’t get drunk. It is difficult to be be a LOTP from a horizontal position. Almost unknown.

Unless other guests are similarly positioned.

2) Just Google for “How to be a party guy”. It tells about doing card tricks, conducting Quizzes on General knowledge in the form of riddles, lives of Film stars from Holly, Bolly and Kolly wood, Quiz with Doodles ,and testing Sense of humor with cartoons and so on.

Stop reading this tripe and pull our you computer or tablet. Plan, prepare and rehearse.

P.S. If you have gone through the article with total detachment with not a single suggestion making any impression on you, please know your real goal is already laid out. You are the ideal candidate for training in meditation and reach its highest goals and lockdown is the perfect medium. The real purpose of meditation is to transcend the mind and experience directly the Oneness of the Universe, (or one’s Oneness with God if you are looking for disciples). And you will realize that in this space-time continuum, corona pandemic is but an infinitesimally small fraction. And quarantine is just two boring weeks in one continuum but space is limited to 6 feet between souls!