On Being Cooped Up: The Irony of Being Privileged

Some days ago, a friend, Anju, sent a video of hordes of hens and cocks racing out, as if celebrating their ‘azadi’ after heaven knows how many days of being ‘cooped up’. Her caption said it all – ‘Us after lockdown is lifted’. Never have I empathized more with the condition of cooped-up species than I do now…. And this, despite being in the care and company of loved ones. It makes me ponder….how does the privilege of enjoying freedom become a habit difficult to break when confined within limited spaces in lockdown conditions? Then how do women and children cope with prolonged periods of curfew and curtailed freedom of movement in ‘disturbed’ areas?

I have been ‘locked down’ at home, ‘secured’ by my daughter, Manasi and her partner, Nitin, since March 22nd – the date I was supposed to travel back to my home ground. Being a loving mother to caring children concerned about ‘senior citizen risk’ of a mother who refuses to grow old and ‘slow down’, I indulgently acquiesced, telling myself that I get extended bonding time with my toddler grandson, Nishaad (Nishu), who had by now nicely warmed up to his visiting ‘Amma’ and also looked forward to some more relaxed time to chat with my kids here.  And of course, the ego satisfaction of ‘being there’ when the kids needed me so that they could smoothly transit into their ‘work from home’ schedules and we could let our service providing helpers take a paid holiday. Little did I know then what I was letting myself into! Today it is almost touching two months and my only ‘stepping out’ has been on to the small balcony of the flat in a gated housing society that my children live in or short strolls in the corridor to ease the impatience of Nishu and loosen up my stiffened muscles. (The Resident Welfare Association – RWA - has imposed super strict movement norms here regarding restrictions on movement of senior citizens and children below 10!) At this point I don’t even know how much longer I will continue to be in this ‘protected’ status trying to be the ‘domestically grounded’ person which I have never been in my entire life of 60 odd years.

Let me begin with the positives of this lockdown. Nishu gets lots of attention and stimulus from three doting adults. Each day we share the excitement of his new learning and naughtiness that keeps us on our toes and bring innumerable smiles on our faces. I relive my daughter’s toddler days and look for similarities and differences and also see with pride and celebration the informed, conscientious and confident co-parenting that this generation is privileged with.  I am getting new insights about the ways in which working couples in the post globalization digitally networked and competitively demanding corporate jobs are so much more confident about comfortable parenting despite work pressures – something our generation of activists struggled with in our pendulum of commitments between our public and private roles and negotiating caretaking responsibilities with our partners from our idealistic feminist perspective. While the children are overwhelmed with their own work pressures,  they also  feel guilty  about not ‘adequately’ sharing into the domestic chores and do their best to monitor  that ‘Mamma’ does not go overboard and fix ‘resting time’ for their ‘self styled super heroine Ma’, reminding me constantly that I am not as young as I pretend to be! Our ‘quality time’ together are those with little Nishu, and the precious luxury of shared time during the morning and evening cups of tea. We seize at these rare luxuries of ‘no work’ for fleeting moments, often interrupted, as we are hard pressed for coordinated leisure time. Long rambling chats and laughing together about absurd jokes, discussions about contemporary issues, what the Post-COVID era portends and its impacts and numerous other things we would normally talk about at length seem largely out of reach, while balancing home, work and child care responsibilities.  Overall, however, life is moving along seemingly smoothly.

Yet, there is a sense of uncomfortable deprivation that this ‘cooped up’ existence imposes. Numerous WhatsApp groups have become super active now with a bombardment of sharing information, opinions and articles, YouTube links, songs, poems, hosted talks and webinars (some rather interesting but, my domestic routine keeps me out of the loop!) and field supportive actions. It gets exhausting and overwhelming to even scroll through these and enhances the feeling I am doing absolutely nothing that is socially meaningful – something that has been the essence of my existence through my entire adult life. I battle with my sense of ‘contributing’ to the domestic domain but being far removed from the ‘social’ loop and then look at myself from the lens of feminist analyses of the productive contribution of the domestic domain. We have often cried hoarse about the undervaluation of household work but, from our privileged positions, never hesitated to employ domestic services, on whose shoulders we fulfilled our professional and other self actualization needs. Then, when a time comes that care of elders, grandchildren and extending needed support to our children or other family members needs to be prioritized, why does one grapple with a sense of guilt and deprivation? Why do we undervalue ourselves as ‘just being in the domestic rut’? Is this the arrogance of feminist privilege which we achieved through our own collective struggles? These feminist dilemmas are real from a privileged class perspective where we chose our paths of rebellion against following the beaten track of role expectations as women and managed to straddle between the public and private domains through negotiated spaces, which suddenly have become restricted during these times. And I feel sad for myself and internally crib….

But did our sisters from working and toiling classes who could never exercise the kinds of negotiated choices we demanded and acquired as feminists ever crib about being deprived? A playback of shared moments with K, our ever smiling doorstep waste picker comes before me….often abused by her husband, sometimes cursed by her mother-in-law, over the years when she came to pick up our waste we developed a special bond. She would often ventilate her tribulations; share her aspirations to educate her daughters ‘enough to get good husbands’; and when her son, who was my daughter’s age, graduated, calling both of them home to celebrate with tea and snacks and discussing what he wants to do….. My advice to her to have aspirations for her daughters equal to her son’s, my appeals to her to assert and protest when oppressed at home were mostly dismissed with a sardonic smile, “Asaach chalaycha tai….tumchyashi bolun mann halka karte!” (That’s how life is…I feel better after talking to you!) I was at once exasperated and amazed by her resilience and tried to draw inspiration from her smiles and also celebrated that, once her husband got a steady job with the PMC he stabilized…. she looked so much happier when I often bumped into them together, riding back on his two-wheeler after work. I think of L, my domestic helper, joking about her ‘mhatara’ (old man – husband) needing his daily dose of a peg or two, to keep him ‘well behaved’ – ‘Kahi traas det nahi tai….mukatyane jevato ani jhopato’. (He doesn’t cause any trouble. Just eats his meal silently and goes to sleep.) My feminist conscience tries to grapple with the ‘adjustments’ that these amazing women make with such humor and feel at once humbled about their forbearance and a heightened sense of the chasms of being privileged and aspiring for greater spaces of freedom.

I think of the denial of my space for thinking, writing, expressing…..strong needs that I had taken for granted as mine as a matter of right, something that I had earned and deserved….and the sense of deprivation that I am not able to do it now, according to my whims, moods and time. With my intellect churning with thoughts and my emotions going on a roller coaster spiral, my inability to lock myself in for a long enough period to type out, articulate and share begins to affect my confidence to express.  And then my mind shifts to the media stories of the migrant worker carrying his mother on his back to walk miles to reach his abode, the pregnant woman who wants to reach her home despite numerous odds, the young tuberculosis afflicted girl whose emaciated, exhausted body gives up on her battle of survival during her long trek home. The mockery of guidelines for physical distancing, frequent hand washing and hygiene maintenance when more than 40% of our population live in tiny hovels in dense shanties, deprived of minimal services that would help them maintain hygiene and ‘quarantining distance’ hits me hard. And I am disturbed by a guilt-ridden thought -- Is my resentment at my privileged predicament real or exaggerated when survival and good health is itself a privilege? A voice from a feminist sister from Kanpur, speaking at the decade end conference of the contemporary women’s movement organized by SNDT, Mumbai in 1985 echoes in my mind: ‘Yahan aap sab apne hakon ke liye lad rahein hain, lekin hum toh wahan ladne ke hak ke liye lad rahein hain!’ (You all are fighting for your rights, but we are fighting there for our right to fight!) Such a difference in definition of ‘rights’!

I feel anger at the injustice that a virus brought in by the elite has had far reaching consequences on the marginalized. And the post-lockdown planned scenario. The elite, for their own ‘safety’, will buy automations whereby they can do away with their ‘dispensable’ low paid service providers, as one would discard outdated commodities. Industries will be ‘revived’ with labour welfare and right to negotiate benefits being relaxed in favor of employers, in the name of ‘economic revival’ and (re)creating jobs for migrants. Financial institutions will focus on SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and forget about the numerous small women entrepreneurs who abound in hamlets and shanties. And urban planners will plan for in-situ SRAs (Slum Rehabilitation Agency) as winning solutions for ‘decent’ housing for the economically weaker sections (EWS) to free up spaces for urban expansion and creation of ‘smart’ cities. And agriculture will be sought to be revived through reverse migration and ‘boosting’ exports while talking about ‘self reliance’.

I then start questioning my nagging desire for free ‘space’ which refuses to leave me: ‘How much longer will I need to wait for my race to freedom where I decide my spaces and priorities and the use of my time on my own terms?’  Really, having been privileged by freedom spoils you……I am now waiting to get back to my new azaadi with greater appreciation of those who are doomed to being cooped up almost all their lives in physical and/or mental cages and with a nuanced sensitivity to the fact that we are all trapped in conditions that are not always within our control.  It took an innocuous virus to give me the gyan that freedom and storms are felt differently according to one’s position and that nothing can be permanently taken for granted. And a new vision conceptualizing a more meaningful freedom is hopefully waiting to sprout.

(Note: Thanks to Joy for extensive comments on my short, initial draft, Ruma and Manisha for their useful suggestions and encouragement to write and Geetali, for providing the motivation to share this through Miloon Saryajani.)

Nagmani Rao 

nagmani30@gmail.com

(Nagmani Rao has been part of the women’s movement since 1978. Her area of expertise is mobilisation, research and training. She has written extensively on issues of women and rural toilers as well as academic writing related to teaching social work students. She has been consultant with research and community development organizations and has been involved in research projects related to women, community development, functional review of government departments and Total Literacy Campaign.)

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