Life in the Time of Corona

After the previous rather serious post on Emotions in the Time of Corona, I thought I'd step back and take the lighter aspects of life in these times.

With this whole lock down and social distancing, people's lives have changed. They're suddenly spending all their time at home, not stepping out, not meeting people, not doing things like going to office or going to a mall. And that's a lot to take in.

Except in my case, all those above statements were already true for me before the lock down began. I'm one of those people who realized that my regular lifestyle counts as 'social distancing'. So for me, the lock down hasn't really been a drastic change. Life has....continued rather regularly, with the exception that the things I used to do before are things I'm expected to do now. I'm still home. I'm still not meeting people physically (though I suppose now the excuses for not answering phones are diminishing). Though, I must admit, I do have a sudden urge to go driving - what better time to go through the roads of Bangalore when you're assured that they're going to be free from traffic (though, I did read a news article this morning about there being a traffic jam somewhere - trust Bangalore to have a traffic jam without traffic).

The one change that has happened - which is something most people are experiencing - is that suddenly, there's a lot of house work to be done, and no one to do that but ourselves. So, we've divided up the labour.

I'm on jhaadu duty. I don't want to brag, but I do feel like I've become a bit of a jhaadu pro (or that's how I feel in the moments when my back isn't killing me). There was an initial struggle, wherein I managed to sweep everything to a corner, but could not for the life of me get all the stuff on to a dustpan. Initially, I thought that the problem was with me. But after watching several unsuccessful attempts at the same from my parents, I must say my ego felt slightly better (we luckily found another dustpan lying around somewhere, which was far more efficient, and which managed to massage my ego further). I initially started off with complete commitment, sweeping the house (the few times in your life you lament having a big house) scrupulously every day. After a few days, it became every alternate day. This morning, I was almost tempted to make it every three days, but managed to stick to the program (don't know how long the will power will hold though).

So that's the jhaadu. Next comes the pocha, which is dad's responsibility. If I had to think back to my contributions to this house during the lock downpdown  I think near the top of that list would be the sudden brainwave of buying a standing pocha for the house just before the lock down. Had that not happened, let's just say that we'd be collapsed from exhaustion, albeit on extremely well-muscled up legs. But luckily, we did buy the standing pocha, so dad was able to take on that chore. Unlike me, he decided from the beginning that this was only something that needed to be done every alternate day (although every time that day arrives, his response is "Abhi toh lagaya tha pocha!" But he takes his job seriously, and gets it done diligently, along with the occasional scream of "Why is there so much hair in this house?!" Welcome to a house with women.

Then there's the kitchen duty. The cooking, by default, went to mom (this one wasn't really even worth a discussion). Dad and I pitched in on cutting vegetables and washing dishes. Despite cooking being a daily chore, mom's bigger pain point every day seems to be not so much doing the cooking, but rather, deciding what to cook. My pain point is wondering how many onions we consume (I shouldn't complain though. I use one of those onion cutter things, so the tears aren't as bad as they would have been). Dad's pain point is having to wash the cooker after every single meal (which, mom happily points out, is because of the family's genetic need to eat daal day and night). But I must say - while we can hold off the jhaadu-pocha for every alternate day (or potentially, I think not far in the future, to only the spots that 'seem dirty'), you can't do the same with the dishes. Cooking needs to happen every day. Dishes, it seems, need to be washed every few hours. They just keep on popping up endlessly. Many of our decisions now hinge on the number of dishes something will require.

So, with all that happening, along with working from home, there really hasn't been a lot of time to think about having too much time. Even when I had a few weeks off, there wasn't really a moment of boredom. We caught up on some movies and shows. I finally got to reading. Mom, dad and I spent a few afternoons playing rummy (our points now cover over 4 different pages). Conversations either revolve around "What's the number today?" to "What do you think will happen?" to "How does this house manage to get dirty so quickly?!"

Apart from that, I recently discovered some of the online workouts offered by cultfit. Wanting to tread cautiously, I started with some beginner workouts. They seemed doable. And as was bound to happen, I figured I could go for something a bit more strenuous. After looking for classes that were the shortest in the list, I signed up for a class on 'lower body work out', which clearly stated that it was of a 'moderate' level. Seemed doable. Except I was exhausted within the 'warm up' period, and ready to die after 1 minute of the 15 minute reps we had to do. Probably the main reason I'm updating this blog today is that my 'lower body workout' has resulted in my lower body no longer being functional, so I'm pretty much stuck to my bed. At least, until the next workout.

And that's pretty much how life during the lock down has played out so far.