Corona Diaries 7: Home, Sweet Home? Not Really

How is life for fish in an aquarium? Perhaps it is somewhat like that for people at homes during a lockdown. You have all you need to survive, but not freedom, and the free sights, smells and sounds of a world in motion. A prison-like existence drives home the value of these unquantifiable experiences in our everyday lives. Without them life can be painfully claustrophobic and incomplete.

The feeling of getting trapped gets accentuated when scope for activity at home is constricted. As an office-goer trying to fit into the home environment, not as a twelve-hour visitor but as full-time resident, your actions can, at times, be unintentionally funny. Here go a few:

HOME & THE OFFICE EGO

Staying at home can be injurious to one’s ego, particularly if you have been an office person for more than two decades and in the role of a boss of some kind. Office instincts kick in at some point and you start asserting yourself, ordering things to be done this way or that. You expect people at home to be reverential and obedient like underlings at the workplace. The only problem is unlike office people, those at home can be chaotic and totally oblivious to your self-assumed top place in some heirarchy.

“A virus does not spread by itself; it needs a host,” you tell your son with the somberness of a professor. “There are 16 lakh to 18 lakh kinds of viruses. Scientists know of only about 8000. Corona virus is round in shape, while others can be straight or mushroom-like. They are one-thousandth the size of your hair…”

“Oh, come on Papa. Stop it,” the impatient listener, a teenager, interjects with no decorum just as you begin unleashing your knowledge of the virus on him. “I have read the WhatsApp message you are talking about. I studied about viruses in school too. Please don’t give me borrowed gyan.”

What insolence! How disrespectful! No one dismisses the boss in such cavalier manner. In office, they would have listened to you with fawning admiration, soaking in every word. “What knowledge, Sir! You should have been a scientist,” someone would have said. “In times of such crisis the country needs talents like you,” someone else would have added. WhatsApp would find no mention.

You are not fooled. You have been in offices far too long to see the gap between what they say and what they mean. After three drinks at a bar, you know, they discuss you often. And asshole and duffer are the words that go around freely. But none of it matters where it should: office. You are still the boss and their appraisal is in your hands.

You look at the insolent kid at home, think of office and sigh. And sigh some more.

KITCHEN AS WAR ZONE

The kitchen is a conflict zone these days. Utensils have not turned missiles yet, but it is only a matter of time. If the lockdown continues for long, injuries are likely to be reported from that part of the home.

Inspired by the fancy dishes from chefs on television and boastful about your own cooking skills, you decide to invade the kitchen. Wife takes it as trespass. This is nothing that could not be managed with good persuasive skills. Once done, you want to play boss, like in office. She not only has to make space, but also keep all ingredients ready at hand in right quantities for you to dump in the cooking pot. Of course, she has to do the stirring as you supervise things regally.

For a couple of days it works well. Then the resistance begins. It starts with non-cooperation and flares into barbed mention to the quality of cooking. Clearly, you have overdone the boss bit. And it doesn’t help that the kid idling before the desktop all day certifies your dish as disgusting.

No, utensils have not turned missiles so far. But it’s a good idea to beat a dignified retreat before things turn worse.

HANDIA AT HOME

Necessity, goes the saying, is the mother of invention. That explains why this friend would try making handia (rice beer) at home during the lockdown.

The internet, the guru of all things, makes it look easy. Cook two teacups of rice, cool it to lukewarm, add yeast to it, mix properly, put the stuff in an air-tight container, let fermentation happen and forget it for three weeks. The science is impeccable: yeast will break the sugar in rice into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Allow the latter to escape. What you would find at the bottom is a brew stronger than beer but far less potent than regular liquor. The friend is thrilled at the information. He gets down to work quickly.

Soon, the container with the magic mix is ready. It is, following instructions from experts, deposited in a place with appropriate temperature. For a fortnight then on, the man stays in a state of bliss. He can barely conceal his excitement. The family finds his buoyant, cheerful behaviour at the time of a depressing lockdown odd, but decides it is kind of inspirational.

After days on cloud nine, it is finally time to open the container and pour out the heady liquid. However, a shocker awaits the friend. It is missing from the secret location. A discreet probe reveals that the wife had thrown both the container and the content away. It was stinking, was her bland reply. He doesn’t have the courage to explain the glories of handia to her, and what exactly was in progress.

Unconfirmed sources say, the sound of heartbreak was heard many apartments away for days.

(The views expressed by the writer are his own and do not necessarily represent that of the website)