The only way to connect due to social distancing was virtually. We connect on a daily basis on a WA group called “The Dhaka girls”. My sister in California along with her friends had done this beautiful connecting video of them dressing up for Vishu( Malayali new year)
That was the spark needed, since my friends and me were already turning into master chefs and bakers during these testing times I wrote a script on baking one of my favourite cake recipe the banana walnut cake and divided the steps depending on the number of participants.
The process was not easy at all as we were all managing homes without help so there was a deadline fixed and each were asked to shoot their part and send it in. I exhausted many people by asking them to reshoot a gazillion time to get the right angles or the give and take from the camera. since they are bright spirited and sporty bunch they all obliged and then the editing and making the movie was done by my son Rohan who is on vacation from London. As he says he was guilt tripped into helping his mom.
Once we saw the happiness in each other and the pride in our families and friends after social media celebrated us and our efforts we wanted to do one more.
We as a bunch used to go out dancing very often in Gurgaon and I was missing that. Recently I saw a bunch of south easterners do a collage video on dancing and that was the second spark.
I initiated the idea, sent them the inspirational video. The girls accepted but we needed a different song and choreography that was easy . The song had to make a statement that’s relevant hence My friend Shirley Tobit a member of GurgaonMoms too suggested ‘Stayin Alive’. We stole the choreography from fun disco videos and we all practiced and sent in our videos. We even got dressed for the disco number which made it more fun. Thus arose this second creation Stayin Alive by The Dhaka girls.
Both these videos have kept our lockdown hours not just busy and mundane but also happy and fun. Me being a completely non tech savvy person I have learnt from my son to edit and compile videos. Some more knowledge added to my expanding horizon. This attention and love we are getting is only keeping our spirits high and we are all ready to take on few more days of this lockdown. We are all happy to stay connected and this process has became our “Me “time. I urge everybody to Indulge in this kind of healthy Me time with your close one and feel the outside world too.