Blog by Arjun Malde
Jai Jinendra. My name is Arjun and I am 9 years old. I wanted to share my lockdown experience with you. I hope you enjoy reading this blog, I would love to hear more about your lockdown experience too.
It was the 23rd March 2020 when I was told I was going home for 2 weeks. I was in shock and close to tears, but when I got home, I had a feeling that everything was going to be OK.
After the 2 weeks had passed by and the Easter holidays were over, I was super excited to return to school. Until my mum told me school has been closed for a few more weeks. I started to cry. I really missed my friends and teachers.
It was very tough to accept, but my mum and dad encouraged me to look at the bright side. So, here I write about the enormous heap of good things happened to me whilst being off school.
Whilst I was off from school, I started to write much more creative stories, because it helped me to keep occupied.
One of my highlights of lockdown has been starting to read the newspaper. We have a subscription to News First, and I have learnt loads of new things from reading it. For example, a yellow penguin has been born on the north coast of South Georgia and is the only penguin that is yellow on Earth.
Another highlight is, despite only starting in August, I finished the Harry Potter book collection in January. All 7 of them and all the movies. I would recommend these for all children aged 8 or over.
Also, I have learnt to use Acrylic paint. With the paint I have created beautiful pieces of art work. 5 in fact. I love painting.
Later on, in the lockdown I learnt how to play better in chess and beat my dad. Before the lockdown was even a thing, I always used to play chess with my dad but however hard I tried I could never beat my dad. Over lockdown, I started to play loads of chess online on Chess.com. From then on, I nearly always beat my dad.
During the summer holidays, when we were allowed to travel, I went to York. It took us 4 hours to get there. We had to wake up at 5:30 am and get ready. By the time we got into the car it was 5:45 am. When we got into the cottage we started to unpack and make the beds. We also went to the top of the 2nd and 3rd highest peaks in York. They were called Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent. It was hard, but we did it.
In September last year, thanks to my masi’s recommendation, my parents signed me up to do a Jain class with SCVP Jain School. From this, I have learnt numerous things like to always forgive other people, to be kind and helpful. In addition, I have also learnt the Logassa, the panchandiya, chattari manglam and all about the various Jain temples of the world. I discovered so many interesting things about Jainism from the classes.
My daadi also fondly teaches me all about Jainism, like when you wake up always to put your hands together to make a half-moon shape. My naani tells me the value in reciting a prayer every night before bed.
In conclusion think lockdown has been mysterious and a fun moment for all of us. I hope you enjoyed reading about my experience, thank you for reading.
