With the diagnosis of the first Sri Lankan Covid-19 patient in March, following many regional countries, Sri Lanka decided to lock down the country as an immediate measure to contain this invisible enemy. The sudden lockdown with the imposition of island-wide curfew which lived for almost two months and social distancing caused many difficulties to normal day to day lives of people. Being students, we faced new challenges of adjusting to an online learning system with no freedom to roam around or to mingle with friends. However, by looking back, I realized that these unprecedented challenging times have offered a great opportunity to reconnect with family and nature in a mighty way.
Caring for Grandparents
As a child whose parents were engaged in demanding jobs, my early childhood caring was mostly undertaken by my maternal grandparents. I still can remember my grandma cooking delicious food for me and my sister and feeding us and my grandpa driving us to the kindergarten and subsequently, to the primary school. We dearly listened to beautiful poems of grandma and inspirational true-life stories of grandpa. However, lately, I had slowly drifted away from them with my busy student life.
During the lockdown, I could spend time with them more often. Over the long years, my grandparent’s health has deteriorated. Now, both of them are old, feeble and weak. My grandma is suffering from numerous health complexities while my grandpa who himself is a heart patient taking care of her fulltime with some visiting external aid. When the prevailing situation in the country constrained external support, as my family lives a few blocks away from them, we could help them on a regular basis. I was so glad to hear my grandma’s singing and great stories of my childhood hero grandpa, again.
Daily Sunrise and Sunset
As the lockdown had given some rest to the early morning rush, we slowly developed a habit of viewing the daily sunrise and sunset. I had never realized that our newly built sundeck on the rooftop would have such a great view of the sun both in the dawn and evening. On a sunny day, we can clearly see the beautiful Colombo city line at distance.
Early morning, the rising sun is big and orange. After a day’s serving, it sets as a large red fruit. Traditionally, people used the rising sun to recognize eastern direction, likewise setting sun for western direction. How accurate is this? It made me laugh when I observed how many degrees the sun’s rising and setting points have changed over the two months as a result of earth’s rotation.
Wildlife at Home: Birdwatching, Animal Feeding and Nature Trails
Our habit of viewing daily sunrise and sunset gave us an obvious opportunity for bird watching. Early morning, hundreds of birds fly towards the rising sun over our rooftop. In the evening, they fly towards the setting sun. Meanwhile, bats fly more or less in the opposite direction.
It was amazing to see wide varieties of birds from my own home. These are some of the birds I saw during the past two months, mostly in large flocks, some in isolation. Green parrots, woodpeckers, kingfishers, cuckoos, pigeons, doves, storks, cranes, barbets, eagles and hummingbirds. From the birds seen, my favourites were black hooded orioles, red-vented bulbuls, Asian koels, paradise flycatcher, brown-headed barbets and imperial green pigeons.
Apart from birds, I had encounters with squirrels, monkeys, lizards and even an unexpected visitor in the rooftop, a white-spotted Bengal land monitor.
Star Gazing
My most exciting activity during the lockdown was stargazing in mid-April. It all started with my sister’s eagerness to watch one of the oldest known annual meteor showers called Lyrids. From 16 April to 27 April, every night and early morning we gathered to the rooftop to gaze stars. Lying back on picnic mats, keeping our heads on cushions, chatting over coffee and snacks, listening to the sound of silence we waited hours and hours to catch a glimpse of a falling meteor.
This was a perfect time for stargazers as we could see five planets of our solar system from the naked eye. It began with seeing bright, big Venus (we saw the brightest and biggest Venus on the 27 April) in the western sky with the evening sun disappearing in the horizon. When we regather after supper around 9pm with our binoculars and old telescope, we first locate the Polaris, the North Star which taught older generations the accurate northern direction. In the northern sky, Ursa Major is clearly visible with its prominent Big Dipper. With the aid of Big Dipper, it is easy to locate the northern constellation of Lyra and its brightest blue star, Vega. Vega highlights the starting point of the meteor shower called the radiant. From the radiant, we run our eyes around the sky until we see a moving star. Our favourite constellation was Orion with the noticeable belt of the Hunter. In the early morning when the moon is overhead, we could clearly see three big planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, the red star close to the moon. One morning, around 5am, we manage to locate Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun in the eastern sky.
The very first night, towards the dawn we saw a procession of about 30 – 40 satellites going one after another near the significantly large constellation Scorpius. Immediately, I recognized them as the SpaceX Starlink satellite trail, which belonged to a project attempts to provide internet to the whole world, even to remote regions. I was so proud to explain this to my family members who were astonished to see such an unusual parade of satellites.
One night we saw the most spectacular firework we had seen ever. One meteor came down towards the earth like a shooting star and burst into a big flower lighting the whole area. Although we waited every day, apart from a few meteors from distant, that was the only meteor we saw in such close proximity. It was said that the meteor shower would run from 16 to 25 April with its peak on the 22nd. Despite our preparations, the rainy and gloomy sky filled with clouds on the 22nd covered our view from the so much anticipated meteor shower.
Family Time
With the activities mentioned before, we had a fruitful and quality family time after a long period of time. After returning from the United Kingdom two and a half years ago, we all were really busy with adjusting to new lifestyles, demanding work and student lives. Back in England, we travelled together so often, and family time was the priority. After coming back, apart from a few brief visits to hither and thither, the only instance we had a proper family time without worrying about never-ending commitments was the time we visited Australia for a long vacation in July last year. During the lockdown, most evenings we played basketball as a family. My mother quickly learnt how to play basketball with the guidance of me and my sister. Some mornings, I cooked breakfast for my family as I used to do when we were in England. Finally, dad and I fixed our long-awaited complexed barbeque machine. Family barbeque times under the stars reminded me of our frequent outdoor summer barbeques in England.
The lockdown was like a long-deserved family vacation although we were stuck within our walls in reality. Actually, it was a disguised blessing for me to reconnect meaningfully with my family and nature in spite of my busy study commitments.
