Adapt and adjust: City finds its new survival mantra
MUMBAI: Mumbaiites have restyled their life to adjust to the lockdown due to Covid-19 – from juggling work and personal life while working from home, battling insomnia, a disrupted body clock cycle, to rethinking how outdoor businesses can adapt, managing house work without hired helps, and making key life events such as engagements and birthday parties happen as per plan.
Corporate professionals say they experience longer working hours and increased workload while working from home, with little distinction between work life and family life. Parents are looking for newer and innovative ways to keep their children engaged productively. Homemakers, mostly women, say housework never gets over, and those dependent on businesses that demand outdoor work or material interactions, such as dancers, photographers, shop owners, restaurateurs, are looking for ways to keep their finances flowing.
“This is not here to stay forever. But we don’t know when it is going to go. It is a matter of being patient and overcoming this tide. We have to adapt,” said Archana Basu, 37, an Odissi dance teacher. Basu moved her dance classes online after lockdown, and interacts with her students over video calls and recorded videos. She also juggles home schooling her daughters, and working a corporate job online that is based in another time zone halfway across the world. “I am lucky my primary income is not from dance. There are a lot of challenges in taking dance classes to the virtual world. In dance, everything is based on rhythm, but there is usually a lag in video calls.”
Basu has begun to record her dance sessions and send them to students, who replicate them for homework and send back recorded videos. “I have also started taking fewer students per batch on a video call, but that means more batches and more work. Many students are signing up, as parents have also reached a tipping point with children,” Basu said.
Anuradha Gupta, 47, who works in a corporate firm, said, “It takes discipline while working from home to log in at a certain time, meet deadlines. It is also important to clearly distinguish between work and personal life. I find myself thinking, if I am not doing office work, I am doing house work. Then why not put a few more hours completing office work?”
Gupta, who is a single parent, has found a way to meet work and personal life balance by sticking to a strict schedule. “I wake up, cook and set up my seven-year daughter’s school lessons on the computer. Then I take a bath and change into work clothes as though I was going to office. By 8pm, I change out of work clothes. This way I am able to distinguish between work hours and time with my daughter. Also, I am always ready for a video call! When I am working, I tell the people at home ‘I am not here. Assume I went to work as usual’.”
Bhagyashree Parab, 46, who lives in Dombivli, and works with a private shipping firm in Fort, said, “There is a discipline in catching a train early morning for work, even though I now save four hours of commute and I can use that time elsewhere. I am also saving the money I spent on commute. Now I spend more time with my daughter, but there is a flip side to staying at home housework never gets over. What I would do in a rush before leaving for work every morning, I now pace out throughout the day. I get disappointed when no one at home helps me with house work. Earlier I had the opportunity to at least share this with my girl-gang at work. The prospect of meeting my colleagues and friends was exciting. Now it gets monotonous.”
On the other hand, Suraj Balakrishnan, 31, a corporate media professional, said, “My body clock cycle has gone for a toss. I end up watching something till 3am or 4am, and barely get sleep on a working day. Then I sleep a lot over the weekend and wake up at 2 pm or later. But I am trying to maintain a routine.”
Balakrishnan, who is also a football enthusiast, is now hooked to the football season. He said, “For three months there were no live games, or television shows. This live football season has given me something to look forward to in the present.” Balakrishnan also got engaged three weeks ago, in the middle of lockdown, in a small ceremony with family. “It had to be done at some point and this was planned for May. We still pushed it forward a little, but it looks like this scenario is here to stay. So we should get on with our lives,” he said.