Page 55 - SANRAKSHIKA 2020 E - BOOK'

Social scientists report that modern electrical household appliances set women free. Women’s liberation and entry into the workforce is not wholly due to the contraceptive pill or social change, but actually to kitchen appliances, availability of running water and electricity. Earlier, women spent long hours trudging to fetch water for the entire household (thousands still do so in India, tragically), and then, cleaning utensils and clothes pouring mugs of water. Anyone who has done this will swear it is one of the most diabolical chores ever.
Theorists say that the most useful invention that set women free is specifically the clothes washing machine. Washing mountains of laundry, beating the clothes clean, squeezing with a mangle, and drying everything out, mangled the poor women. The washing machine simplified everything and threw up free minutes and hours in the day. I realized how precious my washing machine was when it chose to malfunction in the middle of February after running marvelously for 21 years. The mechanic shook his head and told me it was too old to repair. So, I ordered a new one on Amazon, and saw to my dismay, that it would take 4 weeks for the delivery. By that deadline, the lockdown had started, and I ended up doing all my washing by hand for 3 months, all the time attending office full time every day.
When Amazon started to deliver ‘non-essential’ items at the end of May, I was ecstatic when my new machine arrived in style. My mother, who was also stranded in Ranchi, and I celebrated with generous quantities of cake.
Again, in the third week of May, newspaper deliveries were re-started, and Ma and I trilled out gleefully to Aryan, the paper boy, from the kitchen window. He appeared like a vision of hope, like a long-lost son.
"The lockdown taught me to value machines & little joys that each day brings"
Piyali Sharma
Sr. Commandant ES HQrs, Ranchi
As soon as the shops re-opened in Ranchi after June 1, I sailed out and got myself a second pair of spectacles. I am blind without my glasses, and all through the lockdown my worst nightmare was that my glasses would break. The only option would have been roaming about wearing my prescription sunglasses. At the opticians, I could not stop grinning. I felt as if I were buying my wedding dress.
Ah! the simple pleasures of life! The lockdown taught me to value machines and little joys that each day brings. Never again, keeping my fingers crossed.
LOCKDOWN MEMORIES
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