We are under a 21 days lockdown in India. This essentially means if you are a sane person you would not move out of your house unless there is an utter emergency. A 21 days lockdown can teach you a lot of things. One of the things is how much of luxury are the domestic helps and how much dependency do they have in our lives. In India we can hire them for a very very affordable price. They help you with literally everything – dishes, cooking, laundry, cleaning the house, helping in the garden etc. You can go beyond that also – there is no limit. A domestic help who can do these things can be hired in a range of Rs 10,000 (about $150). And now I realise that it is nothing.

The maids usually visit in the morning, wrap things up in less than couple of hours. Even before you are having your breakfast, like a genie, your entire mess has been cleared up. You are not bothered at all. You find the kitchen is super fresh, the floors are shining, the clean windows letting in the fresh breeze of air. In the lockdown these domestic helpers are not allowed to move, so we have to take care of all the things. The kitchen does get very dirty, the sink gets flooded with utensils and blocked water, the floor looks gloomy with dust, peels of fruits and vegetables coming out of the garbage bin – is what the initial few days’ scene looked like. We are now getting a hang of the household activities and trying to minimise all the clutter we were careless about before.

Slowly, I have come to realise these domestic helpers are nothing sort of angels in our super busy lifestyles. They take all the pains to make your days shiny and nights relaxed. We need to recognise them for their efforts. We have to give them more respect, they deserve a lot of that. Less of that haggling when they ask for money and more of love and care is what they need.

Well, I have to get in a habit of writing more and more. There is a complete lockdown of 21 days here in India. I have been working from home. Work part is not much disturbed. Being a software person, home and office are one and the same. It’s all about the laptop, internet and some music. Work is home and home is work.

There has been a lot of realisations in these lockdown days and there are still 9 more days to go. Even after that one may not be as mobile as they were earlier. This virus has killed everything – social life, personal life, economy, travels, weddings, celebrations. The world is not the same, at least for next few months. People are caged in their houses, streets deserted, malls closed, public transportation halted, no more morning walks in the parks, not hanging out with friends. The world has come to a still, and the places which are not are paying heavily for the carelessness.

There are so many challenges for a person under lockdown the first being he has never been programmed to be this situation. And that is why it is more haunting. Well, couple of initial days were not so bad, to be honest, but 21 days is really hard and one has to slowly and gradually make him stronger for that.

बाहर डर का माहौल है । There is a sense of fear when you step outside. A crowd in a grocery store is a big alarm. The coughing person on the cash counter at the grocery store is a big alarm. They are really a lot exposed as they have to deal with so many different people daily. It’s scary sometime to go to the grocery store. Till this virus takes a little breather we really do not have any option at hand. Nevertheless, life has to go on and it goes on irrespective of all the uncertainties. Hopefully we will come out as a winner from this pandemic.

I intend to write a lot more and I hope that will help me kill some time. Take care you guys, stay safe and sound.