Newborn named Lockdown in UP’s Basti

LUCKNOW: The five-day-old Lockdown Nirala would not even know he is on TV and his pictures already splashed in some of the daily newspapers. The child born on March 29, when country reeled under a lockdown due to coronavirus outbreak, at a PHC in KhuKhundu village in Basti district of UP, is a normal, healthy child weighing 3.5 kgs which are pretty normal indicators for a boy, but what is not normal is his name, Lockdown.
The family said they named him so because they do not want any child to be born under such difficult conditions of a lockdown. “We were worried about how things would turn out, but we had faith in Modiji (PM Narendra Modi) who made things easier even during a lockdown. By naming the boy, Lockdown, we also show our gratitude to him,” said the boy's father, Pawan Nirala.
The proud father on his facebook page has several pictures with the boy where he (father) wears an ear to ear grin. Reasons are many, he said. “Lockdown has made us known. People initially laughed at us but not anymore,” said Pawan.
Mother, Neerja, is healthy too. “The boy did not trouble me at all. I had a normal delivery,” she said.
It’s a family of cobblers, being into a traditional business of shoemaking and selling. Lockdown’s elder brother is a three year old boy with a commonly heard name, Vidyant. When asked if the family would retain the name or it is a publicity gimmick, Pawan’s elder brother, Shriprakash Nirala, said, “He was born on Sunday. Birth certificate is not yet made but it would bear his name as Lockdown Nirala.”
The day the boy was born the family did not know how to hold the ‘naamkaran sanskaar’, when the grandfather suggested why not the boy be named Lockdown.
When some of the grown-ups in the family put ‘birth of Lockdown’ as their social media status it hit almost instantly, and from where began the boy’s and family’s tryst with fifteen minutes of fame.