WFH-Something to Celebrate!

“Work From Home” does not mean “Work From Himachal” a poster held by a long suffering Himachal resident protests at the huge influx of working people who have decided to take advantage of the WFH by changing their base to small hill side towns.

For many people of all ages, the lockdown has turned out to be quite the opposite! It has freed them from the tyranny of being bound to cramped city workplaces and punishing commutes. Goa, Mussorie, Dehra Dun, Kasauni, Puducherry have all attracted working people who have been exhilarated by an opportunity to work from what would have normally been holiday resorts.

“ I am much more productive, and enjoying getting to spend time with my children”, one young father exulted. “ I no longer have the migraines I used to have. I now realise how much pressure I used to experience , giving my elderly parents their medication, seeing that the part time help finished their chores so that I could lock the house and then get on the metro to reach office on time .” Now, I am so much more relaxed, and my relationship with my family has really improved” says an adult offspring who has elder responsibilities.

So, for some the lockdown and WFH has been a wonderful opportunity to be productive. It’s also enabled them to do this in from the mountains, or the beach resorts they could never afford to spend so much time in before the pandemic changed our lives so very dramatically.

I worked from home for 10 straight years after my children were born. I didn’t know it then, but I optimised my time. I wrote opinion pieces on the predicament I shared with so many other young women who had shone both academically and in early careers till they got married and had children, and then were suddenly having to deal with two powerful unforeseen forces.

The first, motherhood itself, which instantly turns priorities upside down, and inside out, till suddenly a melting smile from a three-month old, becomes more important than any opportunity or accolade.

The second, the logistical issues that are involved with balancing the conflicting demands of a career with the needs of young children.

The decision to put my career on hold was very hard indeed, but once taken, I immersed myself in an exciting new world, the world of my children. I became a member of the Association of Writers and Illustrators, and wrote children’s stories that were published. One story, Nutty about an ugly dog, is a chapter in a Class 1 textbook brought out by Pearson, another, “The Sun is like a Football” was translated into many languages. I took my children to the Children’s Book Trust Library where we got to meet other writers of children’s book, some of whom were women, and mothers, successfully de-mystifying authors for my young children. When my 6 year old son’s friend exclaimed “your mother is a writer” when she saw that I was the author of a book she loved, he was dismissive, “All mothers are writers, “ he stated authoritatively, “some are famous like Enid Blyton, the others are like my mother!”

I also suffered considerable angst being largely cut off from adult company, and wrote passionately about this. I full length articles in The Hindustan Times, and The Times of India, I wrote about being “Under House Arrest”, arguing about a greater role of men in parenting, in articles such as “Coping with Fatherhood.” This questioning of the values of the Indian family set me off on a life long quest to go deeper and deeper into the subject.

In much the same way, many people have used this period of enforced confinement very productively indeed. They have dusted out skills, long forgotten such as painting, playing the guitar, singing. Others have acquired new skills ranging from coding, or calligraphy, Almost everyone has become more efficient at housework, and many have actually discovered an unknown passion for cooking. All this while productivity at work has actually gone up!

So even as one views the future with some amount of trepidation as fears of a third wave swirl around us, we can celebrate the freedom from the straitjacketed confines of the old work day to enhance ourselves and our lives.

It really is an opportunity, and if we seize it , the rewards are going to be enriching in ways we may not fully comprehend right now.