Off to Office?? …Fingers Crossed!

12 Apr Off to Office?? …Fingers Crossed!

Ok, so my tolerant half went to the office today after an year and 10 days of ‘Work From Home’. Here I am writing this while ‘M’ attends her online class in the other room.

I was all anxious when he told me about that call from the office where he was asked to come down for some important work. I went from being panicked to rushing up his lunch box to telling myself ‘All Is Well’ to putting up M for her class to brainstorming about what all can be packed for his snacks (pandemic times can lead to packing a whole lot of extra stuff to avoid outside food at all). So he finishes his breakfast and comes to pick up his food bag (yep, it’s no more just a lunch box), he peeks and takes out two items. I ask him why is he taking those out? And pat comes the reply, “I won’t eat that much”, I say “bring back if you don’t”, “no I have enough already”. Alright.

So he is ready to leave for this corona stricken outside world equipped with a pocket sanitizer in his pocket and another one in the car. He wears his mask, and I tell him to keep an extra one in his bag if need be, he says ‘no’, I say ‘yes’, he says ‘it’s not required’, I say ‘please’ and with a giving up face he keeps it. With the ‘Bye, have a good day’ hug, I blurted out ‘All the Best’, what? why? But it had already come out of my mouth, he looked at me (I think he smiled behind the mask) and I smiled to cover up for the words. He took the lift to the parking while I crossed my fingers, mumbled a quick prayer before closing the door.

It is weirdly funny how things have started feeling. We avoid people who have travelled recently, we make sure the handful of friends we meet during these times have no symptoms, if we ourselves have any signs of sore throat or nose block, we tell them to not visit, any deliveries are received with super extended arms, immediately sprayed and sanitized, still left orphaned for 3-7 days in the balcony before use (thank God for the 30 days return/exchange policies on Amazon, Myntra etc otherwise we would have ended up keeping all big-small, right-wrong products and would have had to conduct our own sale someday).

If people genuinely stop making unnecessary trips to markets, pubs and restaurants, plan household needs a little better so that stepping out once a week is made possible, stop visiting malls for entertainment, stop visiting people if they have travelled in less than 7 days (you might not have any symptoms but don’t risk others who are vulnerable) then, maybe, the people who have to go out to work, for livelihood, for emergencies, might feel safer, the families might not feel that the member going out to work is going to a war zone or battlefield every day and I might stop feeling like Rani Padmavati sending my Rana Ratan Singh to face Khilji.

Everything is not the government, police or administration’s responsibility. They are setting guidelines, let’s follow them strictly. Instead of finding loopholes and excuses to go out rather take responsibility for our families and friends so that we all become free sooner and can live a normal life once again.

And for once, please stop believing and spreading the word, if someone tells you, ‘Hona to sabko hi hai‘ (It is going to infect everyone eventually.)

Think about it while go and I prepare my home, with a steamer, heaps of green tea and immunity boosters, to welcome my Corona Warrior in the evening.

Stay Home! Stay Safe!

Break the chain!

Go Corona!