WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE LOCKDOWN PERIOD?

Lockdown meant the common greeting of "How are you?" was replaced by near unanimity with "What do you do during the lockdown?"

This query normally baffled me as Rip Van Winkle, the icon who slept over  decades and Kumbhakarna who slept for half the year have been childhood idols claiming their right to be worshipped, For facility of those who would agree, their pictures with due apologies are provided.

 

But whither such noble ideas?

The maid had been sent staycation at her home with pay and attendant perquisites. Exercise being a foreign word now was in motion. With people baying for yours truly's blood and stopping short of placing a pig in the sty ahead on the cleanliness roster, the task to prove a point was an uphill task. Techniques of cleaning were imparted by lofty faculty members. The lockdown ensured no escape route. Slowly but surely, the grind of finding the nooks and crannies left out by the maid to be cleaned became a fine tuned art for the artist's eye and a science for the rational scientist.

The telecom giant's help to the peers came in no small measure. The landline went dead and lo behold, the only call that could be placed from the cell turned out to be for lodging and following up the complaint. People who called on the landline assumed that the lazybones was on a chatter with another victim and chose to not call on the cell. This provided add time for one to labour on. 

The calls of the Prime Minister to clap and light lamps only added to the woes as the rehearsals, dress rehearsals and the original had to be gone through with meticulous timing. Any small error would invite a distasteful glance from the well wishers. This was further accentuated by the clamour for work from home loading the hitherto wafer thin brain with a dilemma as to whether the objective question was work from home and/or home work with no choice of "none of the above" being given.

The 24x7 channels update on the spread of the virus and its accomplishments were intermittently peppered with celebrities pushing their videos of wiping fans and singing which led to a concession being given to yours truly----

NOT TO SING IN THE INTEREST OF HUMANITY

With this largesse in the pocket, one could not expect more. 

But it was not all work and no play. 

The channels provided different statistics which were dutifully jotted down and compared at different points of the day. The finding was that every channel the most accurate and most reliable news making it the No.1 news channel. However, they always had different numbers which had a striking similarity to the election results coverage. In the surfing process, yours truly also visited Doordarshan to find out the timings of the various programmes telecast decades back so that a discussion could result in a consensus between the inmates. Pardon me for the term inmates but in times of lockdown no better term was found in the limited vocabulary.

Having thus passed the day, with a wrap of the news at the end of the day, hitting the sweet sack, there was a prayer on the lips but for what---

Should the lock down continue or not