Living the life: ‘Shutdown is perfect time to work on my online presence’

I’m a theatre trainer. Before the shutdown commenced, I was researching how to conduct online workshops. I thought it would be a good thing to know. Once the shutdown came into effect, all planned summer camps were cancelled. Immediately after the shutdown, we conducted online workshops for children. We even had had children from Luxembourg and Tokyo join us. It opened my eyes because now I don’t need to worry about geography anymore. We got a brief from a toy store, saying that parents weren’t able to work effectively because the kids are taking up their time. They suggested a one-hour brief to keep the children entertained. We did a workshop. Corporates and event managers have reached out to us, asking for us to hold such workshops, across all online media websites. I have a WhatsApp group with parents, and it’s a support group on how to engage them. There, I noticed a demand to put children to sleep without using technology. So, I started Bedtime Stories with John Pradeep. I turned off all lights except a small one in my room and read to them. I did a live once, and my daughter started getting possessive. She’d ask me to stop going live because she didn’t want others to hear her bedtime stories. I read every story two times.

After the first time, I tell the children to close their eyes and sleep. I end the video with a little music. The feedback from kids and parents has been so good. It’s been well-received, parents have also been asking for parenting tips. There are 24 so far, and they’re all available on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. It’s a tough time for everyone. I decided to do this so for two reasons - firstly because children are getting addicted to mobile phones. I remind the kids that they don’t need to look at the phone for the story. This helps children fall into a healthy routine and break the habit. The second reason is that I realised I needed an online presence as well. This lockdown period is a perfect time for that. People will know more about me, and now I have the time to brand myself and create my online presence. This is something steady that will carry through the shutdown.