I started on this post as the rant of a home-bound working male in India fulminating against travails of the lockdown brought on by the worldwide Coronavirus or Covid-19 crisis. Along the way, it evolved into one with a wider view. Bear with me (and take it in the right spirit!)😊.
There would've been a reason that artists like Mian Tansen, one of Mughal Emperor Akbar's 'navaratna' or 'nine jewels', were able to rise to matchless levels of perfection in their chosen field.
The same goes, for instance, for the incomparable poetic compositions of Kalidas, a millennium earlier.
Or for Western stalwarts like Aristotle, Socrates or Plato, amongst multitude of others.
Fact is, hugely talented as these legends were, they were fortunate enough to be patronized by kings and emperors of their time (even though some like Socrates, forced to drink poison👆, fell out with their patrons at some point), who reportedly sometimes dedicated the revenues of specific villages or regions for the maintenance of these artists. As such, these worthies did not have to toil like the hoi polloi to make two ends meet, and hence had ample time and mental energy left to devote to their artistic and/or intellectual pursuits.
Would such stalwarts, even with their higher intellectual faculties, have been able to achieve the heights of perfection which they did, if they actually had to devote a substantial portion of their energies to physical (as opposed to intellectual/artistic) pursuits? Seems a tall order. Even from a quasi-scientific😄 angle, we know that the human brain consumes something like 20% of the total energy of the body, even as it consists of just about 2-3% of the body by weight. So, theoretically, if someone uses up, say, 70% of his energy in toiling to keep body and soul together, would s/he be left with sufficient energy to devote to intellectual pursuits? You can bet on that!
And here, we're not talking about physical work someone indulges in as a hobby, for instance carving or pottery, and not for earning one's living. These hobbies actually serve to re-energize or re-focus the mind, while the hand or fingers carry out certain activities almost mechanically.
Which is why personas who displayed extraordinary intellectual or spiritual traits, while engaged in making a living with physical pursuits, are given very high billing, at least by common people. Take the example of the Saint Kabir, who continued to function as a weaver while churning out poems and sermons of extraordinary spiritual insight.
Which is also why, in modern times, we applaud those who hold down and contribute value in a full time role while also discharging their familial duties, whether as a single parent, a primary caregiver or a homemaker, which especially goes for women in India (and indeed, across many other countries in South Asia and beyond).
One quails, though, at the 'convenient' depiction in 'modern mythology', especially in India (but also associated with someone like former Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi), about women who're virtually goddesses ('devi'), juggling work life and career smilingly!
Indeed, so ingrained is this deified image of the Indian housewife as a 'devi' and so well drilled is it into us from a young age that, quite some years back, when I hinted at the unrealistic expectations from Indian women, at a schoolchildren's debate at that, not only were the participating children all at sea to appreciate the nuance, but even the teachers present were exchanging strange glances!😆
Which brings me back to the topic of this post. Many (most?) men, especially in India (and perhaps in many other countries where men are not used to contribute equally to household chores), have been treating the current Covid-19 lockdown as a jail term, with forced labour.😂 One indication is the plethora of jokes and caricatures doing the rounds.
Gone are the days of scooting off to office early in the morning, lounging with a mug of crisp coffee, browsing a few emails and websites, having a leisurely meal preferably accompanied by stimulating talk with a favoured person, some reading, putting in a few hours of the mandatory serious work, and coming home late with a long face complaining about the missing work-life balance! (Men: wait a wee bit while I put on my full body armour, before you start throwing the brickbats.😝) Indeed, I knew someone who, the moment the spouse started outlining some plans for the weekend, expertly feigned a call from office and scooted off to the cool climes of an inviting workplace.
Now, however, each and every aspect of our work life is totally transparent to the spouse. After all, there's only so far one can hide behind that impending call/VC/web session, before the spouse and other family members get wise and start monitoring the actual content of those calls/sessions. Hallelujah! 😣
But seriously, however politically incorrect this may sound, the overwhelming feeling amongst some is that working with hands tires them out sufficiently to preclude taking on any heavy lifting (pun unintended) in terms of intellectual pursuits. So should one as well forget about innovative and/or strategic thinking while someone is doing the login-washclothes-webcall-cook-trainingsession-eat-washthepots-budgetreview-teamaking-teamsession routine? Some may feel so.
And yet, the flip side of the coin is, there are everyday examples of people (mostly women) who've been taking on this exact routine from time immemorial. And beating the pants out of competitors while at it. And deifying such excellent achievers helps no one.
Indeed, the 'forced home imprisonment' may just about sensitize the primary earners (mostly men) better to 'what the hell does s/he do at home all day'. And, hopefully, start contributing more equitably to housework.
Or is that just a fond hope?
PS: I'm sure, having been brought up and lived inside the cocoon of a male-dominated society, I've not been able to cover all bases as far as overcoming a chauvinistic thought process is concerned. Apologies in advance.
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