Come corona, lockdown, all shutters down….     we-the-consumerism under serious threat. 

Irrespective of where we stood in the superlative-branded-hierarchy, we are brought down to the lowest common denominator – Roti, Kapda aur Makaan.

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All the zillion things bursting out of the cupboards, the frills n fancies, the super-premium brands we paid through our nose for, seem meaningless, so irrelevant, in moments of covid times.  

It feels like  going on retail-fasting, forget retail therapy!  So, chalk-n-cheese to the ‘BC times’  of DiL-maange-more- n-more, the oneupmanship game, the compulsive  shop-holics, filling a bottomless pit -in the fear of being left behind. A rat-race it was!

Looking at the magnitude of materialism owned, it makes one ponder…How much is enough? Where to draw the line? 

Thank you corona, for reconnecting me to the age-old wisdom. It’s not about ‘how-much’  but with what mind you consume-

Mind-lessly Or Mind-FULLY 

🙏🌺

#covidtimes #consumerism #compulsivespending #mindfulness. #lockdown 

aiyanagunjan. drawing.2017

Covid and Text2Talk. Come corona and there was a shift in connecting people, back to the old.  All locked in within four walls, there was a  yearning for human touch, see, feel. 

Pre-Corona, there had to be  reason, so valid, to dial a number or else DND.  ‘Please text me and I will get back to you!’ Forget the ‘cold’ text chatting, now  we see ourselves picking up the phone to directly chat. We have all the time in hand! 

Nothing beats a two-way flow,in real time. No fancy emojis can express, what simply listening to the voice can reveal. Feel good and relaxing lockdown time it is. 

And then technology takes a leap forward….video calling makes it even more real. Who cares how one looks in the lockdown, it just feels so real, comforting, talking face2face , in that very moment. No texting,selfies or emoticons, can connect the way, seeing the person’s face, in real time, can. 

Even though you pulled us apart physically, Thank you Corona for giving us all the time…to re-kindle, re-connect, voice2voice, face2face, heart2heart…in real time, here and now

📞☎️ +91 8525893290

#covid #lockdown #connecting. #texting #phonecall #humantouch #realtime #busy

aiyanagunjan.connecting strokes..2019

Come corona and the look-good went out of the window. All the fancy frills and make-up kits felt ignored, left behind in the dark corner. Fashion, so IN, overnight, turned OUT.

With high command order of stay locked in home , all of the top of the top priority ….hi-fashion, high-heeled, selfie-pout, designer bags in toe, manicured-pedicured, tips n toes, hair-died-of-coloring, spas n beauty parlours, cant-be-caught-dead-without-my-makeup, sexy in style, forever young…all went way down the priority, to negative. Who’s looking at me but the four walls!! Where do I go…

Come corona, the look-good had no lookers anymore, anywhere. Who has the time to get into all that fuss and fancy when there is bartan-jhadoo-poccha to be done.

Forget look-good, Feel-Good, Feel-Comfy, Feel-Jhaalla is the IN corona fashion. Whose seeing me anyway…Wear anything, anyhow, mismatched, whatever topping over whatever bottom, anything would do, nothing will also do, the older the softer….no one to seeMe.seeU. Just be. Just chillpill.
DIY beauty palour tips n tricks… Hair growing wild…n white…what to do…beauty challenged.

Its like corona has stripped us off our high flyer idea of beauty and vanity. Its like corona has stripped us off all the layers of superficialities, and keeping appearances. By force, we are made to feel comfortable in our skin, without all props. By corona design, we, for a moment, wondered, what it could mean by ‘Beauty is skin deep’

Come corona,
come acceptance
in being just the way i look
good, bad ugly (who has a choice!)

No stress
Of looking
anyother way
than looking
the way i do
At home
Easy go,
comfy feel
no fuss no frills

natural self I see
Relaxed i feel
It is what it is
Feeling much at home!

#covidtimes #corona #lockdown. #fashion #beauty #vanity #strippedoff #bare #feelgood. #lookgood

aiyanagunjan.strippednaked.watercolors.2006

Come corona and we all were brought down to our knees, and sent straight back Home. Wherever, however, whatever- the entire human race went back to being a Caveman. Shelter in place, family together, hunting n gathering the essentials…protecting boundaries…fighting corona, the enemy.  Come corona, 

Wherever you are. 

You are home, 

No questions asked

you are Home, 

wherever you are

No tug of war

Just stay put

wherever you are

You are

Home

A square foot of land

A roof and four walls

A shelter in place

wherever, whatever

size, shape, colour creed

it maybe…

Just KISS Home

Keep it Simple and Safe! 

#covidtimes #corona #home #lockdown #homeland #stayhome #safehome

aiyanagunjan.my sqft. watercolors.calligraphystrokes,2015

Come corona and the pace of the 24×7 day suddenly changed……like a racing car turned into a bullock cart!

WFM ( work from/for home) minus the ‘maids-of india….corona, unwittingly, kickstarted the new skill-building program. DIY, youtube self-taught, it is!

Some zoomed in working hard ( or hardly, who knows), and others zoomed out of work. No more of running helter-skelter, round and round the garden, like a headless chicken…on roads.. in mind

The pre-corona fast-life seems to have gone into a Slow-Mo…each and every stroke, so clear, so lucid, linearly moving in the day-night routine.

‘i m busy-got no time’ made passe by corona. Time is all one has, in plentitude. Suddenly, ‘nothing’ has acquired a whole new meaning! Socially acceptable it is, to say I m doing ‘nothing’ …just twiddling my thumb (in between WFM). Spaced out day, it is.

Thanks to Corona, it takes me back to the age-old wisdom in nothingness and slowness. Nature takes its own time and yet everthing is accomplised.

From the space of
nothingness
The New emerges…

So lets just chill-pill, do whats to be done
And cruise in the leisurely pace of slowness.

#covidtimes #pace #corona #lockdown #fastlife #busy #slowness #timeinhand #nothingness #nature #wisdom

@aiyanagunjan.one at a time. watercolors.calligraphystrokes.2015

Come Corona and the so-called ‘Great Expectations’ did a somersault! Where they were all set- to reach out for the stars, looking up above the stars so bright, like the diamond in the sky…..

And suddenly, it all went haywire, as if the E-software got corrupted by a virus…it could only expect the worse scenario, doomsday, fear, panic…and all the stars and dreams, no where in the pucture, engulfed in darkness. Hope n fear seemed to be playing see-saw in the mind, in these covid times.

What to do? What to expect?

Thanks to corona, i connected back to age-old wisdom or rather the eternal tug of war – expect vs accept!!

Forget the greatness (all projected glory)
in Expectation….
Kal kya ho, kisne jaana…

And just say Yes to the simplicity (grounded reality) in Acceptance.
Jo hai abhi, wohi hai sahi.
It is what it is….
and flow from there…
Peace. Truce.

 

Sanity quotient,
in times of insanity!

 

 

 

 

#covidtimes #corona #expectation #acceptance #tugofwar #choice #lockdownlife #hopefear

aiyanagunjan.watercolours.calligraphy stroke. 2014

Come Corona and chaos, panic and uncertainity, at every level of life, took over life, like a tsunami…..For once, i dont feel like writing more on whats happening ….we all are living it, we are all in it together…you and me and all of us…there is no other way out, but to face each day, lockedin, as it comes.

Today, as we move from Lockdown 1.0 to Lockdown 2.0, all i want, all I seek, all I aspire for is my sense of Calm. I take inspiration, I draw strength, from the 1939 British slogan, at time of preparation of World War 11.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.

Nothing more
Nothing less.

#StaySafe #StayHome #StayCalm
#covidtimes #corona #lockdown #british #worldwarII

@aiyanagunjan. calligraphy strokes.watercolours.2014

Come Corona, and I stop short in all the zillion plans i was so busy making and living in.

Pre-covid, our brains were wired to make plans…we lived in the plans we made, even the present was just a ‘means’ to the end called future plans. Our plans, written in stone of our mind, gave us the purpose, goal, target…the sense of doing, the high of achieving in linearity…climbing the ladder of making it Big…

…plans and plans, micro and macro, business and holidays, school tiffin and homework, eat-out and cook-out, exams and appraisals and bonus, weightloss and look good, money and honey…anyone and everyone wired by the plan. so busy, so occupied, pre-occupied, over occupied…running on the treadmill of life…working hard..planning hard, how to get the plans off the ground.

And Stress , the by product, is nothing but the a GAP between where-am-i-now and where-i-plan-to-be! All sucked into the whirlpool of planning, controlling, stressing, fearing, hoping, stressing, living….aiming for the stars, we planned!

Come Corona, and it was as if the plug was pulled out! Suddenly all our big and multitude of plans
(in our head) came falling down like a pack of card. Nothing held good. Something that was so real, so tangible, in our (little) minds, suddenly seemed so unreal, so illusionary. Nothing in our control! Future n planning gone into the black hole.

Thank You Corona. In one stroke, you showed usour ‘almighty’ sense  of control is a merely an illusion.

Thank you corona
for gifting us back
The Present.

Just do what you can do, live well, within the boundary of the 24-slotted- Present…and leave the future and planning alone. Replace control with trust. Things will fall into place, sooner or later, beyond all the Planning, we thought, we wrote in stone.

#covidtimes #corona #planning #future #present #mind #illusion #control

@aiyanagunjan.moving finger series 2008.calligraphy.pen.ink.

Today it was as if I saw my 2018 Fevicol diary, by my bedside, in new light. The cover story popped out👀

“A Home Should Tell a Story. What ( Who,How) we live with says something about us.”

Truly true, to these lockdown times! We are all locked in, with each other, with all what we have, under one roof.

Safe at home- Yes! But easy, not really….it’s a whole new playground with players so many, at one time
. 😊☹️😳😤🥵

All’s fair in love and war… @Home!! So it’s said!

A Home (sweet home),has suddenly acquired a whole new meaning, a whole new dimension, a whole new drama… stories on stories… emotion n action n reaction….God only knows who’s the Big Boss!!

Yeh ghar ghar ki nayi kahani hai
🏛🏨🏬🏡🏠🏚

Unwittingly, Fevicol captured the essence of Covid times, in its 2018 diary cover. Yeh Fevicol ka mazboot jod hai…👩‍👩‍👧‍👦🏡👩‍👩‍👧‍👦toothega nahi❣️

#covidtimes #home #stayathome #pidilite #fevicol #safeathome #corona #lockdown #stuckathome