Home, not alone

Work from home comes with its own set of rules

- G.C. Shekhar

WHEN life demands a reset from its routine it takes time to adjust. The morning alarm, the muffled protestations of drowsy children, harried mothers, the swear-heavy and sweaty commute to work, the post-work hangouts at pubs and malls late into the night. All need to pause before change imposes itself upon us.

Coronavirus, our much-reviled, unwelcome guest, prompted a few welcome changes, as work from home (WFH) became the new normal. Children and parents under the same roof for the entire days altogether knitted families closer. ‘Quality family time’ materialised in abundance; the few unexpected, and expected, fissures are, of course, subject to patient smoothening.

For school-going children, this was a bonanza—an early onset of summer holidays that otherwise had to be earned by running the gauntlet of exams. With promotion guaranteed, this would be a year of magical reality. For their working parents, the bonus took a different form— more time to sleep in lieu of hours of commute, a freedom from formalwear and meetings over conference calls masking barely stifled scowls at bosses’ impossible targets and inane witticisms.

Initially, home-maker moms loved the new arrangement—everyone under her watchful eye, sitting everyone down on time for meals at the dining table. This cozy arrangement starts fraying under unforeseen pressure points—the WFH man, so tied to the coffee machine, demanding an endless supply of beverages, children scrounging for prelunch snacks and, in the absence of eating out and Swiggy deliveries being a casualty of COVID-19, the necessity of cooking several courses for dinner.