While spending your time on Facebook or having video conferences on Zoom might seem the best idea for the days when you stay at home, there are actually other activities even more enriching that would make you happy.

Reading books or magazines, working on a puzzle are just a few examples: try to combine your need of staying on the phone with activities that relax both your eyes and brain.

Homer's Iliad opens with a plague visited upon the Greek camp at Troy. The Decameron (1353) by Giovanni Boccaccio is set during the Black Death.

The stories offer the listeners ways to consider how similar crises have been managed previously, and how to reorganize their daily lives, which have been suspended due to the epidemic.

• Devotees pray for peace, wealth, and success on this day, and seek Lord Ram's blessings.
• On this day, many people also perform "Kanya Puja", in which nine girls representing the nine forms of Goddess Durga are worshipped.
• Some devotees also bath and dress up small Lord Ram idols, light a lamp in front, and then place them in a cradle to commemorate his birth while kheer is prepared as an offering to God.