Rediscovering Home in the time of COVID pandemic

Hey. 

It's been tough going this year. Around this time last year, there was news about a kind of fever, with symptoms of flu that were fatal-cold, cough, difficulty in breathing etc. Then the COVID-19 pandemic began. And for the past ten months in specific, people across the globe have learnt to change their lifestyles-which is 'stay at home' and work.  

     One of the first concerns during this period, apart from the lack of medical aid for the pandemic, is about the safety of women and children. The 20th Century feminist researchers have observed that their interviewees recognised HOME as the most unsafe place for women and children. The pandemic lockdown took away the many safety nets that some women and men had built around them as they lived their daily life. Before the lockdown, people had set a monotonous rhythmic pattern to their everyday life. 

  For the working couple, it was the rhythm of going to work every day, leaving children with the parents/parents-in-law, and the relief of meeting different people in the workplace that led to that good feeling of self-worth (which also covered whatever empty feeling that would arise now and then) that came from "we have utilised our knowledge, learnt something exciting or put our abilities for a useful purpose". 

  For the homemakers, it is a  different experience. As people left home for their respective workplaces/schools/colleges, women could focus on their chores at home and make time to do what interested them or work from home. At the end of the day, as one joined these dots, for each member of the family, it gave a sense of satisfaction-that Life, after all, is worth it. Our ego was satisfied(that's a problem area though😰😰) and we got on with work and everyday life. 

      Slowly, small changes crept into our everyday life. It ushered in simple comforts for a hard day's work. Food could be 'home-delivered'; shopping online was already normal; for those few rich/upper-middle-class and the nouveau-riche, what began as an eagerness to travel for the joy of it soon turned to compulsive travelling. In all this rush, 'HOME' is no more and no less than a place to cook, pack food, and come back to sleep. A kind of 'nest' for people--no more, no less. The joy of 'living in the home was submerged in the enthusiasm of exploring the world outside.  

  As the lockdown was extended, the fact that safety is 'staying inside the home'  began to dawn. Ironically, one of our basic needs is-मकान / ಮನೆ / home. I wonder what drove us away from it-- Employment? Opportunities or the lack of it? A desire to prove our abilities? or was it a way of turning away from some unpleasant realities that had to contend with about ourselves or the people we live with at home?  

 The lockdown has surely stubbed this chaotic 'dating plan' we had created with our 'home'. In its own way as we humbly learnt to stay at home. Breaking away from any habit has to have withdrawal syndrome. This instance brought multiple withdrawal syndromes- irritation, irk, impatience, and slowly to comprehend that home is the reality. It is where we belong in all its dangerous beauty or beautifully dangerous. Now that there is no running away from this bitter-sweet truth of home, the inevitability of staying at home has led us to create what best we can in the given circumstance. We have learned to enjoy home food, home bliss, study at home, online class from home, watch movies at home, work from home, and home medicine for COVID-19. . . it's an endless list. We have understood that home remedies provide relief and that home is sweet even in its bitterness, after all!!

I have shared a few songs that capture these varied moods. Pick your choice😍 

   

   

     

 

 

(Video courtesy-youtube)

And do share your thoughts, observations, comments and songs too if you would want 👇 and do hit the follow button 👉!!

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