Those Pesky Household Chores

Ten o' clock at night and I just finished sending the last email of the day. The dinner is done, and the kid is about to go to bed.

"What's for lunch tomorrow?" says a sleepy voice.

"I haven't decided yet!"

That's your standard answer. But inwardly you just cursed yourself, because not only have you really not decided what to cook, but you haven't even prepared the menu. And you still have to empty the dishwasher and reload it, fold the laundry, and also cut the vegetables for tomorrow.

Also, your kid wants to chat and delay sleeping!

Isn't that a usual scene? It certainly is in my house. According to me, three of the most boring chores are unloading the dishwasher, or if it's the maid who cleans the utensils, then putting the clean utensils back in their places, folding the laundry, and cutting veggies.

I never want to these tasks, and try to postpone them as much as possible. Invariably, it's the end of the day by the time I get to do them, and then because I don't want to push them to the next day, I end up doing them late at night.

I really, really want a Genie to get these chores done for me. All other tasks I can manage, although grudgingly. But these three really get on my nerves. They are boring, time-consuming, menial, and repetitive. Also, nobody helps me with them!

That's not entirely true though. My husband does help me with the cleaning and cutting of vegetables. I especially hate cleaning the green veggies. So he cleans them for me (sometimes). I now have found a vegetable vendor who sells cleaned, cut vegetables. Yay!

I shudder when I look back at a hundred years back or even fifty when women did these tasks at home. I cannot imagine spending time doing them day in and day out.

But here's what I realised. In those times, and even now, these tasks can actually be fun. Ever thought of putting on your favourite music when you're cleaning the vegetables? Or even watching an episode of your favourite show on an OTT platform?

Perhaps, involving the entire household, even kids really might be fun. It actually could be those times when the entire family sits together and talks. And you know, really talks. Without mobiles, TVs, and any other gadgets.

These household chores are repetitive tasks that can be done while multi-tasking. And what better time than to spend it with the family talking about nothing and everything? May be that's when you'll be finalising your vacation plan, bitch about the obnoxious person in your team, listen to your kid's school adventures, and even resolve the world climate change problem.

Remember those old movies when the grandmas or mothers were shown making those वाती for diyas? Or grinding masalas, making chutneys, cleaning vegetables, and even cooking? So many of these tasks have now eased up. You don't have to grind masalas or flour on the stone grinder manually, or even manually make those वाती for diyas. Those are all available easily in the market.

I also know that it is not easy doing all these tasks at home, especially for a working woman. And I'm not even against getting all these items ready-made.

But in case you want to do these at home, it might be a good idea if the whole family joins in to share the chores. After all, work shared, is work lessened.

Why Do Clothes Have Tags?

Have you ever tried a beautiful, new top that you had your eye on for quite sometime, only to get an itchy neck when you finally change out of it at the end of the day?

Why do all clothes have those hideous tags inline that scratch your skin and make your life miserable? Hasn't any designer ever, ever realised out of those hundreds and thousands of brands that those tags are terrible and one of the worst places to advertise your brand? Because, the first thing I do when I get out of that scratchy, itchy thing is to cut off all the tags to remove all traces of the awesome brand that I had always wanted to use! Sigh! Talk of brand power!

And then sometimes, you go to the shop of a pretty well-known brand and hope that you'll find something that you like. You step inside, and a nice dress catches your eye....hmm...trendy, nice colours, and for a change, it seems that it might really fit you well. But the fabric isn't that great. So as a last attempt to justify your buying impulse, you check the price, and that's when the 'brand' wall crumbles. You are left gawping at the price and touching the fabric several times, just to ensure that you didn't read it incorrectly!

The salesgirl is hovering around, hoping to get a good commission. And it's difficult to sound casual and nonchalant as you bow out as gracefully as possible, saying that the dress didn't really 'click'. It's hard hiding the fact that the brand, fabric, and price don't 'click', and that you get better options in half the price on that tag.

Remember one of those times when you saw a great clothing item on sale, and realised that the tag did not say "Made in India" but made in that one place that you don't want to buy from, that you've promised yourself you'll avoid unless in dire straits! Remember that all-consuming melancholy that threatens to overwhelm you for taking that vow of patriotism? All because of that one tag!

Really, life is made so difficult because of these clothing tags! Wish it was easier to unlabel! 

Delay Tactics

 "I'm hungry!"

"I just came to get a glass of water."

"I can't find the notebook."

"Teachers just don't understand. Why do they pile us up with so much writing?"

"But I already know this. Why do I have to do it again?"

"Yes, yes, I've already started." (The book's not even opened!)

"If I've to do homework, give me my dinner." (As if I don't feed her at all!)

"I'm tired!"

"I'm afraid to sit in that room alone. Can you sit with me at the table?" (All puppy eyes.)

"But you said I can go and play!" ('After doing your homework' wasn't obviously heard.)

And after all this, when finally a word or two are written, along with scowls and frowns, there's still the under-the-breath grumbling...

"Teachers are evil! They make us write."

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a teacher and give you all and my teachers so much homework."

I'm going to hold her to up to this promise when she grows up! And I'm going to have fun watching her when my kiddo has to deal with forty more students in her class when they give such reasons for not doing their homework.

Don't Grow Up Yet

Daughters are treasures. They love selflessly. And they grow up too quickly. I have a seven-year old girl who already behaves like an eleven year old. She can make her own lunch, clean up after dinner, do almost all household chores that I do, and still laugh and giggle like only a kid can. Where did the years go?

Come Friday evening, she preps for a 'weekend' where she wants me to get up late and not do any household chores. She prepares a 'breakfast in bed' for me and asks me to lie down and read in the bed for the day. It's an amazing feeling. I've never had anyone do that for me.

Don't get me wrong. My husband does help me at home. We both try to ease each other's load. However, there's nothing so sweet and heart warming than your son or daughter making you sit down and take a breather because you don't get to rest and are too busy for your own good.

The other day, she told me, "I'll do five of your chores. But you only have to play with me for twenty or twenty five minutes." That's all? She just wants twenty five minutes out of my entire twenty four hours? And just to play? No new toy, no favourite dish, just play time! Where did she find that selfless love?

She goes for a daily morning walk just to collect flowers. When she returns from the walk, she shows her treasure to me with a detailed explanation of where she found each flower and what she did on her daily round. Then she quietly asks, "Do you like it when I bring flowers for you?" Good God! Give me strength to answer her without shedding tears of love and joy! Like? Of course not! I love it!

One day, when she's no longer a seven-year old, no longer staying with us because she's studying somewhere else, or is away for work, no longer thinking of getting flowers for me, because she has her own flower-giving person, I'll recall these times!

Girlie, don't grow up yet!

Games Behind Doors

We've all been at home for more than a year now. Not just adults, but kids have adapted to being inside the four walls. Although not an ideal situation at all, kids have learnt to play all sorts of games at home, whether alone, with parents, siblings, or even friends.

Online hobby classes, games, school, tuition, and even get togethers have become the much-needed social interaction windows for children.

But kids are amazingly resilient and adaptive. Not just physically, mentally and emotionally too. They have invented newer games to play at home, even learning to play with each other through the online sessions, and across balconies.

My seven-year old daughter has concocted imaginative games for not just herself, but also for us adults to be involved in. And I'm rather proud to say that I've stolen some of her games to use them as ice-breakers for my team meetings.

Since last year, we started with simple word games such as Name-Place-Animal-Thing and Animal-Sounds moving on to Using Rhyming Words in a limerick, Jumbled Words, Describe an object in the room. It's been amazing to see how my daughter has improved her prowess at words and language.

We've played Chess, Snakes & Ladders, Uno, Carrom, Guess Who?, Pictureka, Scrabble, and some board games that she invented on her own. We've done hide-n-seek, role playing (doctor-doctor, school, hotel, visit to beach, staying in awesome hotels with room service, which is of course provided by my daughter).

She has been a traffic police, doctor and patient, teacher, PT instructor, yoga instructor, pilot, cruise captain, fire fighter, police, paramedic helper, ambulance (the vehicle, all with the beeper sound) and even a robot over the last year. How can you say that the year has not been happening and exhaustive?

I've seen her play and chat with her friends through online meetings, holding art classes for her friends, story telling sessions with her grandpa, and even daily video calls with grandma showing her new plants, activities, and even reading out stories.

She has written funny stories, a few chapters of two new novels, spooky stories, comic books, Chacha Chaudhary stories, and has moved on to write poems.

What is incredible is how imaginative this new life behind doors has been. I don't deny that kids haven't had enough physical activities, and they are missing out on playing out in the open. Yet, they have learnt and adapted.

There are a couple of kids who stay in a building opposite my house. They both stay on two different floors, but their balconies open out to the same side. Throughout the day, they are constantly calling each other, asking questions about daily routines, such as have you had your lunch, what are you having for lunch, what are you doing now, and all such questions, providing an awesome, free entertainment for us.

The other day, they decided to play hide and seek. I admit that this has been the most creative and imaginative hide-n-seek play that I have ever heard. Each took turn crying out, "Alright, I am ready! Guess where I am hiding!" Mind you, this is across balconies and across floors. The kids are at their own houses. And they are just imaging themselves hiding in the places. So the other kid would guess, "Under the bed, inside a cupboard, behind the sofa!" It was so much fun to hear them play!

I was not just astonished at their imagination but extremely proud at seeing them so adaptive and innovative.

We've all been harping about how excessively and utterly boring it has been being stuck inside the four walls. But we forget that windows, doors, balconies, and terraces are still open!

The Shapes In The Clouds

Dragon, alien, crocodile, fox, alligator, and a whole bunch of them you'll see if you choose to. But do you even look up? I don't. Or to be accurate, I'd forgotten till my daughter reminded me to!

This little exercise started in our household when my daughter read a lesson in her English book about how a little boy finds new shapes in the clouds. Their homework for that day was to go look out the window and find shapes in the sky. And how we do that everyday. Even when we are out riding in a car.

Boy! How we have really missed out on those carefree things! Those little things that made up our childhood. That finger crossing that we did when we saw a red mail van, those pencil shavings that we kept in water overnight hoping that they would turn into erasers (duh!), the small designs that we cut and preserved from the wedding invitations that we received in the hope of using them for making greetings and then not using them because we liked them too much!

Innocent things that didn't matter to anyone but to yourself. A little ghungroo that you found on the road that you've still kept, an ice-cream shaped eraser that you got as a birthday present, that peacock feather that your dad got for you on a rainy day, a keychain that your best friend gave you. So many things, now lost to antiquity, boxed up in a long-forgotten drawer of an old table.

As my girl grows, I find my own childhood in her. Some of the things that she does or says remind me of how we grew up, what our aspirations were, how our playmates were! Our childhood is far behind us, but our kids bring back those memories that help us relive them.

I don't regret growing up. But I do love it when my girl reminds me of what we did when we were kids. And it does make my heart carefree to do some of those things again.

I found an octopus today in the sky. What did you find?

Work From Home, Work At Home, And Home Work

 ... that's our new normal! Each one of us is doing this. I could also add a few more...No Work So At Home, Not Working From Home, Never Want To Work From Home, Enough Of Work From Home....

This new normal has really become a different life from what we had five months ago. Nothing had prepared us for this phase of our life. When we started with this lockdown, we had assumed that it will be short-lived. But now after five months, our lives are irrevocably changed.

Being cooped up at home has changed our lifestyle. We are now spending so much time at home, just looking out of the window that I've now reconciled myself to the feeling of being a caged animal in a zoo. We really don't have a life outside. 

Milk, food, vegetables, groceries, even non-essential items are now delivered to our places. We just open our doors to our cages, get the parcels in and barricade ourselves back in our cages. No wonder zoo animals have such busy lives!

Back in March when the lockdown started, it was summer. The harsh summer set in April and we were glad we weren't out in the scorching sun travelling to work and back. Kids enjoyed extended holidays, exams were canceled, and for them it was heaven being home. Of course they did miss playing outside and meeting friends. But slowly, we all accepted the new normal.

As April galloped into May, our life had turned upside down. Mall visits, evening drives, shopping sprees, friend meetups all morphed into cooking, cleaning, standing in self-distanced queues for essentials, working from home, entertaining kids at home, and surviving on meager supplies. Shops were closed and stepping out of the house was strictly forbidden.

Most of the kids have adapted faster than the parents. They are all tech savvy, attending schools and co-curricular activities online. I've seen kids who are giving interviews online, solving puzzles, learning gaming and coding, all through the internet. Earlier, parents fought to keep the screen time limited for their kids. Now, parents have no choice but to allow kids to learn online.

My family is no exception to these changes. My kiddo attends school three hours a day and then moves on to watch her favourite cartoons and shows online. Add to that the TV that she watches and her screen time has exponentially increased.

 When we keep her away from the screen, she devises different games for us. Some of the games that she has devised are: Danger crossing race, Guess the word, Clock game, Chocolate fair, Running competition, Karate exercises, Dance classes, Mask making competition. Almost every day, she comes up with a new game in which Aaya-Baba are the opponents. The games have elaborate rules, and not adhering to them ends in us getting expelled out of the game, or worse, double punishment. Thankfully, the game conductor is biased towards Aaya, and ensures that Aaya wins most of the time!

The other big part of the day is home work. And I'm not talking about the homework that my girl gets from her school. This is the homework that I need to do that she assigns me.

And that is the reason why I am so very busy these day! Imagine how much writing and work I need to do at home: usual office work, household chores, and my school homework.

The pandemic has brought so many changes in our lives that it is hard to imagine how it was a mere five months ago. We are still unsure of how it will be, or in fact, whether it will ever be completely normal again.

Till then work from home!