"Som! Where are we with the preparations? How is the final cut looking?". He was not ready for this sudden query. His wife appeared concerned . She signaled him asking what was going to be his response. He took a deep breath, wiped off the mess caused by his overflowing tear glands, hit the unmute icon , crouched close to the laptop mic and lied in a steady tone "I have almost completed the changes. The final version of the slides will be available for review in another couple of hours. Hope that is fine". "Yes. Can you share the initial draft now for a quick early review?", asked the 'voice' on the other end of Som's call. Som had no other go but to admit that he had logged in late that day, completely forgot about the presentation, while helping his wife prepare sumptuous Biryani. Then it happened. Like a blessing from the heavens, the hand of the Almighty seemed to have saved him from the repercussions . The bandwidth of his internet suddenly dropped to dangerous levels. The people in the call weren't able to hear his apology . In fact they just heard some gibberish , thanks to the network. He , unaware of his kid playing with the wifi router which in turn prevented his message from reaching his peers in the call, got pleasantly surprised when he heard "OK Som. Looks like you have some network issues. We couldn't hear anything. We can connect after a couple of hours as you told. Bye". He thanked his luck and forced a smile, but his smile withered soon when he realized that the network issue would have meant that the download of his favorite OTT series would also have failed. "Damn it!"
"Turn off the gas after you hear 5 whistles. Ok? You anyways have time for your office work. I have the PTM meet from Tittu's school now ", his wife , as if , waiting for him to close the call , dictated. " Adhe! What should I tell if his teacher asks about the zoo trip?", asked Som's wife. "Trip? Now in lockdown?", he rebuked. "Not a physical trip. A virtual tour only. But the school is charging Rs 1000 from each student", she responded. Som rebuffed the absurdity and tried to concentrate on the task in hand. He was not sure how things would pan out, whether others would like or not . After all, it was a new recipe he found, while browsing for a quick code defect resolution, the previous day.
Som, after finishing his presentation and obviously the Biryani, took a short walk. Though Som was not a great fan of working from home initially, the additional time that he could spend with the family, the flexibility, he could get with the work patterns and the chance to 'work for home' apart from 'working from home' changed his opinion. Moreover, he could be at his native, far away from the busy city life. The greenery and the fresh unpolluted air would be welcome to almost anyone from the cities.
"Endha Soma!(Hey Som!) Seeing you here for few months now. Have you lost your job at Bangalore? What to do? Lools like lockdown has taken away your living too. Don't worry. We can start a recharge shop at the junction", said one of his acquaintances, while walking. There was one more person who requested him to take his cousin as an apprentice in his work so that he could also learn the 'art' of a software engineer and make him ready to earn 6 digit paychecks. "Art?". Som was confused as to what was there to learn in browsing stackoverflow and copying the working solution from there. "Uncle! Our project work is a high security one and I am not supposed to disclose it or share it with anyone. Sorry!", he lied and paced quickly back to his home. Som hated getting pulled into such random conversations and being quizzed about when he was getting married(though he already was married) , when he was planning to go to U.S.A just because someone's aunt's son , being a software engineer managed to travel on-site and post selfies playing in the snow there and when he was planning for his next kid.
Irrespective of the pros and cons that Work from Home mode offered, it is going to be the norm for some more time. Som once heard a granny in his neighborhood telling, "Men should go out and earn, whereas this Soman is sitting at home and working or that is what he claims. Aarkariyam(Who knows?)!". He grinned, knowing that another one of the so-called outdated conventions had been broken.
