She loses her temper very often nowadays. “This is not surprising in the current circumstances,” Nandini reasons. His life has been reduced to a saga of non-stop hard work, from early morning to late at night, without rest until he falls like a log on the double bed, more than half of which is always occupied by Barun. , her husband. Well, she doesn’t mind working, she has always been an active and agile person who preferred to keep busy; in fact, he hated laziness. However, in this case, she is mercilessly deprived of her privacy; his private moments were always important in his life. Nandini feels unable to shake off the strong sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia? What the hell! Just four months ago his life had followed its usual course.

Since her marriage some twenty years ago, she had grown accustomed to an established daily routine. He would get up early from bed, prepare tea and meals, watch Barun go to the office with the ubiquitous box of tiffin, have breakfast, and then receive the maid for domestic cleaning while chatting with her carefree and relaxed; After the maid left, she would have the rest of the day to herself to relax, make phone calls to her parents, relatives, or friends until her husband joined around 7pm. Every day except holidays and Sundays when time spent together or outings seemed heavenly. The arrival of the children, first the daughter after two years of marriage and then the son with a gap of two years, made his route more strict, but still gave him the private moments that always pleased him. She had a bachelor’s degree, but she never really wanted a job, and taking care of her home was the most important task. And that had been the story of her life as a homemaker until four months ago.

Now everything has changed. Each and every member of the household would stay at home: the children would occupy most of the living room in Nandini’s one-bedroom apartment, living room, and kitchen, and their smartphones often required absolute silence for their online classes; Baurn would lie on his bed watching the news on television as if he were the only one on earth who needed to be aware of what was happening all over the world and the maid would not come. Nandini would remain mostly confined to her damp kitchen cooking and cooking, she was surprised that everyone seemed to be ravenously hungry at all times despite prolonged inactivity, and worse, they would want ever newer dishes prepared. Nature of Barun’s work made working from home minimal and every time she sat at her desk in the bedroom, she complained more about kids monopolizing WIFI network service than about work.

First, Nandini took her routine as a natural new normal, but slowly and steadily she grew bored and impatient. How could she go on like this: get up early in the morning to clean the house before everyone else woke up? then, preparing breakfast, first for his children and then for Barun, who got out of bed in an infuriating and leisurely way; then she would start preparing for lunch, not being able to combine cooking for the evening as well, as the exquisite connoisseurs did not want stale food for any meal; he would hardly get a nap, since the Barun’s chattering, who got up late, did not stop; then it was afternoon tea time for everyone, preferably with a hot snack and by the time she felt a little free, it was time to make dinner, and when finally past midnight she fell flat on her bed like a log, the TV was still on. U.S.

All the essentials came home – that is, in the society lobby from where they were to be collected – work that Barun did generously, delivered from online booking or local grocery store orders. He often encouraged Barun to go out and buy fresh vegetables and fruits from the vendors who served until 7pm. But he would not give in: he considered himself an old man even though he was not yet fifty years old and for that reason he was not running any risk, that is why he forbade the children to go out.

As the days passed, the suffocation became unbearable for Nandini and now she was truly desperate. Little fights with her husband began to turn violent and provoked tremendous disapproval and anger from the children. And then an idea occurred to him. Admittedly, he found that the bananas delivered online were not entirely fresh and barely lasted two days as they all gobbled up two or three bananas every morning. He tried his banana-centrist idea and said to Barun:

“Look Barun! This continuous home stay without some physical activity is not good for you, it will slowly lower your immunity and finally, when everything becomes normal, you are more likely to get infected the moment you go out. Words, but experts, you know. You must do something to boost your immunity. I’m never free dancing in the house most of the day, so I don’t need to exercise … look, night walks are now allowed, and you can see how bad it is. it’s bananas. You all love bananas! So go out at night, take a walk, sit in the garden and buy fresh bananas from the local vendor, just a little distance from our social complex. Please. ..

It worked to his great relief. Each alternate day gave her much-needed free time in bed, thankfully alone and in private. No matter how long, just fifteen minutes of privacy did wonders for her anguished self. Of course, she never stopped thanking God for keeping them safe and relatively better off than many others because Barun still had his monthly salary. Nandini, a classic housewife, wished the best for everyone in her family and for the entire country and the world …