Skewed definition of womanhood.

6.30 AM- I stop the buzzing alarm and look around mostly to scroll through my phone and catch on some quick news and go on carrying my day trying to be as motivated as, I was before COVID- psychosis began to hit every living entity in this planet.

7.15 AM- I try to perform the complex yoga asana in the online scheduled class, that my peer group has been busy performing meticulously and with great enthusiasm. The sudden wave of being extremely health conscious in an otherwise Saturday night crazy group has made me rather happy.

7.40 AM- Skimming through the webinars that my university has asked me to register, I put goggle alarms 30 min prior to the event, I am having tea whilst listening to my grandparents who are in the middle of a rift as to who should’ve been more aware on fixing the kitchen sink.

The scorching Calcutta sun takes a toll on the normalcy of life. But, there’s no room for complaints as I’m sitting in the lap of luxury at my grandparent's place in uptown Salt Lake in North Calcutta. I put down my laptop and go ahead to chop the vegetables for lunch.

I realize that I have been a complete disappointment in terms of pursuing the domestic skills; it takes me a good forty minutes to peel and cut potatoes, another fifteen to chop the onions according to the requisites of the dish to be prepared for lunch. I am nervous when asked to make an elaborate Sunday breakfast all by myself- I pick the vegetables, wash them, and cut them finer than before making it easier to cook and consume, and by the time I’m done — I’m more exhausted than before.

I tell to myself solving complex econometrics models are far more-easier than pulling off the domestic chores without any help. A cherry on the cake is added every time I’m asked to do a certain task- for instance, I’m asked to cut lemons for lemonade and my family joins me for a laughter riot because the lemons should’ve been cut vertically into pieces of two and not horizontally into smaller pieces of four.

I join them too, laughing at my stupid actions- but deep within I feel a sense of guilt for not knowing enough.

I’m 24, well-read, polite and a balanced individual — I take pride in being academically accomplished; in being able to pull off a decent conversation on politics, Sitaraman’s stimulus packages, fall out of capital markets and literature. But all these come to a zero-sum matrix if I cannot differentiate on fried cumin versus deep-fried quinoa, or pull off a decent omelet with the quantities taste specific subject to individuals.

3.15 PM- Grandma is tired she sighs and takes a power nap, my grandfather falls asleep while skimming through “Anondo-Bazar”, joining in the typical Bengali household — I crave for a power nap myself keeping an alarm at 3.50 pm sharp to join a zoom meeting scheduled at 4 in the afternoon.

I’m doing liquidity analysis and trying to correct the standard error in my research paper, reading the lines I have been framing -searching for better adjectives putting my best effort to make my paper look and sound more intellectual and meaningful than before. Unable to bring any constructive changes- I give up.

It’s close to 7 pm the sun has set, I want to go for a stroll — but make it do on the terrace. I find walking quite meditating, it makes me think and analyze. I pick the phone and call my childhood friend.

We talk about the pandemic, the Avril songs we sang-aged twelve, the guy we had a crush on in the 9th grade, the Enid Blyton books that made us really happy- and the giggles we shared over anything and everything under the sun.

I try to introspect and retrospect through my fundamental growing up years, the primitive three years in college sitting hours in the macroeconomics lectures, solving prisoner’s dilemma numerical, working and delivering chic power-point presentations during masters. Amidst all the hustle and bustle never did my mother for a day taught me how to make Peri-Peri chicken, finely chop broccoli, least make desi Rotis. I feel terrible, I feel I am not well-armed enough to conquer the domestic world — I dial mom and cry in despair.

Mothers being mothers- affirms me, that time takes time, that I shall learn things eventually and just the fact that accomplishment in domestic skills requires practice and efforts put over years. I too shall have it, when it requires me too but for now — I should assume it as an internship, however like my previous gig as data science intern where any wrong input the system would not run, here I am allowed to make mistakes and rectify myself without the occasional banter from the senior manager.