The coolest and hottest among us are now sans makeup, sans bodycon dresses, doing yoga on a mat at home and eating dal-rice because in a pandemic there’s no galangal and kaffir lime to make traditional Tom Yum soup. Game, set, match. Now there is no way for anyone to be jealous of anyone, because everyone is being pushed by their moms to clean their closets. Oh wow you have a walk-in closet? Joke’s on you, boss, cuz that’s gonna take longer.
Secondly, in this atmosphere of general world-weariness and with nothing left to prove, I’m able to let myself go. Until now, if there was ever a whole month when I didn’t wax my armpits, work out, or wear decent clothes, I’d have to take a hard look at myself and consider whether I need a therapist.
Now my gym is closed, I have no social plans and I only leave the house to buy vegetables. And why would I wax my armpits if no one’s looking at them and judging me, anyway? The mental stress of a pandemic means that I can lean in to every self-indulgent impulse I have, whether it’s eating two bags of chips in one sitting, buying makeup that I already know I’ll never wear, or waking up at noon only because I want to eat.
If you want to consider what your life would be like, stripped of all social and economic rules, this is it. Always wondered if you could someday pack up and move to a cabin in the hills and never come back? Now’s your chance to find out.
As we take a step back from grooming, our workplaces are finally taking a breather as well. Until now, every organisation has had a “work from home policy” but this policy is as theoretical as their prevention of sexual harassment policy: which is to say that it sounds great on paper but it doesn’t work, and the reason it doesn’t work is usually because of… Senior Management.
Senior Management, who are in their fifties and sixties now, believe that if you’re at home, you can’t possibly be working. So on the odd occasion that you’d choose to work from home, they’d call you six times a day to check in on whether they can hear you partying or not. God forbid if they call you on a WFH day when you’ve stepped out to buy yourself a coffee from under your building or a bag of potatoes from the corner store. The Senior Management Boomer’s first assumption is, “You’re in Lonavala, aren’t you?” Thanks to all offices being closed, they’re discovering that a one-hour meeting is actually a 15-minute call. Shocking, I’m sure. And then there are the pandemic’s bragging rights. As they never tire of telling us, our parents started out with nothing, studied under a street light, crossed a river and wrestled tigers to get to school, built careers, purchased homes, raised families by the time they were our age. Well, finally you have something to use as leverage over your kids. In 2035, when your teenager is being a completely ungrateful little shit, you can let loose with the whole spiel (and embellish as you wish). “We lived through a global pandemic in 2020, Siyona, what have you done?” “Everything is handed to you on a platter, Kiara, mum and dad survived for a month on nothing except dal and boiled rice.” “Stop complaining about career opportunities Arhaan, you haven’t lived through two recessions, have you?” (I know the jury is out on whether we live through this to have children, but we’re being positive here.) And finally, as everyone pauses work a few times a day to chop vegetables, take out the trash or do jhadoo-pocha in their homes, a new entertaining subculture has presented itself: Privileged Bombay-Delhi folks finding it hilarious that they’re actually having to do their own housework. All of their Insta stories are accompanied by a caption which roughly translates to, “Hahaha look at me failing atThe mental stress of a pandemic means that I can lean in to every self-indulgent impulse I have.
