During this lockdown, I accidentally broke a handle of my spectacles. However, it was not possible to go the market to purchase a new pair. COVID-19 has bestowed upon us so many new problems that require novel solutions. Well in my case, kudos to a doting father, who would not let any obstacle come in the way of his daughter’s PhD thesis writing progress! This optimism made him come up with a very innovative solution of fixing the glasses with a thick thread, thus putting a temporary end to my broken specs conundrum. This pandemic has taught us to be more patient and self-reliant as this incident once again highlighted.

Moureen Kalita is a Doctoral candidate at Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She has earlier worked as a guest faculty in the Department of Sociology, Gauhati University and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati.