Thanks To The Lockdown, Home Is No Longer The Place Women Can Relax As They Are On Duty 24/7!

The home is no longer a place where she can put up her feet and let down her hair. That doesn’t happen if one is on duty 24/7 or if the house is a mess!

With WFH becoming the norm, one big change that has taken place in our world – the home has lost its serenity and sanctity.

The retired seniors at home have to lower the volumes of their television. And the spouse has to stop asking so many questions because the man or lady is so frazzled trying to carve a workplace in a space meant for rest and relaxation.

Any and every form of media has become exhausting

But now the workplace has literally invaded our homes and we are on the job 24/7. With Zoom and Google Meet becoming the norm, meetings can take place even on Sundays – days that were previously pure and untouched.

Take for example a working day in the life of a lady teacher. In many homes elaborate meals have to be prepared because she is ‘at home.’ But the poor lady who cooks these meals barely has time to grab a bite since she is preparing for her next class and has to rush to switch her laptop on.

She is so drained staring at the screen all day long that even social media – her outlet to hangout with her friends also fails to lure her. In fact, any mention of any type of media is simply exhausting.

All she longs for is for some peace and quiet but then there are the children’s online classes to see to. And as she is at home, she might as well make some tasty snacks for the family. Not to forget pitching in as the house-help too.

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Home isn’t somewhere she can relax anymore

The home is no longer a place where she can put up her feet and let down her hair. That doesn’t happen if one is on duty 24/7 or if laptops and papers are all over the house, does it?

On the flip side there is always the freedom of escaping the rush and traffic commuting to the work place. And many of us are thankful for technology that has helped us deliver our stuff from the comfort of home.

As in the case of everything else, all it calls for is balance. In our zeal to make the best use of technology and flaunt how tech savvy we are and how quickly we can adapt to the situation, aren’t we going overboard?

Let’s try mastering being ‘at home’ even at home?

Let’s keep things in their proper space. If circumstances dictate that the home should make space for the workplace, let’s just do that. Give it a space in our homes but be alert enough to see it does not take over.

Let us restrict our laptops to a particular room and our work timings to the usual office timing. So that at the end of the work day, we can close our WFH rooms and join our family members as usual in the sacred space of the home.

Only when we master being ‘at home’ in the new space while maintaining the purity of a real ‘home,’ can we say we have adapted to the situation! Not until then.

Picture credits: Still from Hindi TV series Anupamaa

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