It’s time to move from “Work From Home” to “Work For Home”…while the acronym maybe WFH, both connote different meaning and outcome.
Lock-down imposed severe restrictions on movement and one major impact to the household was non-availability of maid for the house and also housekeeping staff for the society. This meant the residents had to take charge of cleaning their own corridors and also manage their households. Why was this a tectonic shift in terms of lifestyle? Menfolk had to stay and WFH whilst children, if any, had to stay and study from home and if you had elderly parents or in laws they stayed where they were during this time.
It simply meant, a set of folks that once had their own schedule of going to office, to school and to other relatives homes stayed indoors all the time. In how many different ways could this change and have a bearing on the life of women folk at home?
Let’s start one by one.
For starters, it meant more no. of people staying at home 24×7. Food generation is the biggest source of work addition and mental agony. From supply of morning coffee, milk, chocolate or any other type of drinks to breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner it’s non-stop kitchen work. The zaniest part of this is the range that needs to be catered. Children of all sizes and shapes, who can be demanding of wackiest food types deep fried in oil. It will simply drive their mommies crazy into exosphere as they strive hard to meet the extreme palates of their kids that grows like wildfire every day. Next comes the elderly, who have their own preferences that are edible to their stomachs. They cannot eat every other food that is generic as it may not be comestible from their perspective. And finally, we men, who also would like to savor the various delicacies that are on offer. One household, but varying demands from morning to night. Why would no woman feel like a madcap, irate and raged? Think of the iterations, no. of meals in a day x no. of people x category of people…multiply that by 270 days until now…it seems like an infinite end. Worst part is, if you are in Chennai…well you simply burn in hell during summer. It just gets hot, hotter and hottest from Mar through Oct. Without doing anything itself, the heat can be enervating just being at home. If you are in Kitchen doing all that cooking, then it’s veritable hell space that would make them seethe and fulminate in all forms. Especially, when Men like me either profess that they don’t know cooking or simply abstain from it for the aforementioned reasons. So you can imagine. But then, personified by love, warmth and care, they take it in their stride and do it for the sake of their family. Their culinary skills come to the fore as they innovate and create stuff that are delicious, salubrious and lip-smacking. Salute the venerable ladies, but more to come. That’s just one part of the story.
Next major scope of work is again associated with Kitchen. Cleaning the utensils. Now that we covered the food topic, the consequence of gastronomical fulfillment results in humongous amount of utensils that needs cleaning and clearing. You can imagine after all that mammoth task of meeting everyone’s aspirations, this place would look literally like a war-zone and to be honest, you are actually entering a zone where you need to be mentally prepared to remain unscathed from the deluge of vicious outburst. All you have to do is to remain muted, as you normally do in official meetings. Just answer when asked for and to the point. You should and cannot deviate which will lead to further retribution and annihilation, totally. When you assist in the cleaning exercise, you start to wonder, how much we eat in terms of quantity, quality and variety. Then the gargantuan work of scrubbing and washing begins and as time passes by the countless no. of vessels seems to flow from every other direction in a ceaseless manner. It’s like fighting multiple soldiers attacking you from all sides and you have gather and defend with all might. Cookers, Pan’s, Plates (Steel, Ceramic), stainless steel vessels and bowls of different sizes and shapes, sticky iron kadai’s, wooden and steel ladles set, spoons, cups, etc….the list will be infinite and the work incessant. One wonders and is truly amazed that they have invented so many varieties of cooking vessels that need to be used for cooking various types of dishes. How does one fathom that….it’s like the chicken-egg story…which came first…whether the dish was invented and then the vessel or vice versa. The story does not end here…so long as there is a mouth & stomach to feed…we will continue to see….innovative ideas for newer dishes, associated utensils and even ways to consume them.
Let’s get out of kitchen. It’s taken the maximum mind and text space in this column. The next onerous task in the household is that of cleaning the floors and other spaces. First you have to dust settled on tables, chairs, bed and desks. Then use broom stick to clean the dirt on the floor. And finally, use the mop with soap water to sanitize the household. With COVID, the house had to be kept in a spic and span condition to avoid any germs and bacteria from outdoor visits within the gated compound. Now, since the housekeeping staff were not available, the task to clean the corridors in respective floors fell into the hands of the residents and they had to chip in to do that as well. So you can imagine in a large complex structure with many households where there would be senior citizens living alongside, this additional task fell into the ambit of limited no. of residents who are capable to do this work. There you go…
And then comes washing of clothes (even if it is done by the machine), drying, folding it and keeping it in the cupboard, giving it for ironing in some cases, the daily task becomes onerous. She would wash it on a daily basis as we used to go down for walking or playing and since we are going outside of our home, she did not want it unwashed for a no. of days. More work as a matter of routine.
Finally planning and ordering items that were required in advance to ensure that the household was stocked up with essentials and not bereft of them. This meant coordination with local shop keepers who operated with a short time window for delivery.
Last but not the least, loss or privacy and space that was much needed as a respite from the daily chores and seeing everyone all through the day and night. Even though, we lived in a spacious 3 bedroom apartment with Dad, Son and both of us, each one wanted their own space. One room belonged to my Dad, Son took up the Hall for attending his online classes and I sat in the bedroom for my office work. She was the one to lose out on everything from her own space, time and energy. Devoid of everything, I can say that she became a total wreck in the next 5 months until the society relaxed its rules of allowing maids to resume work. Though I eventually contributed in Kitchen utensils cleaning, rest of the work was everlasting.
Invariably this created a lot of stress both physically and mentally on her. One might say, in the olden days or in the earlier generations, there was no concept of maids etc. But then, we lived in an era of Joint family system, where there were other family members who shared the work load equally when required. Also, we lived in individual houses with lots of space, trees and plants around the house the provided fruits and vegetables. Also, the work typically revolved around fixed timings and men and women folk had clear and stated responsibilities in their respective spaces. (We may argue now about patriarchy system etc….that’s for another day/blog). With the advent of nuclear families, men and women working longer hours, it has strained everyone to their limits and wits end.
In brief, life certainly was a stretch especially during full lock-down time where all movements were completely restricted. Once it became partial and subsequently complete removal, life kind of veered in the direction of near normal at least for her with house help arriving at door step from Sep onward. Certainly, without saying, it was definitely a breather even for me from the cleaning task.
Beautiful Life 