Lockdown is a novel idea to prevent novel viruses from spreading. You can identify a lockdown if you find more policemen and cows in the streets than people. A lockdown has a role reversal effect too. If you are in the streets during a lockdown, a policeman is more likely to charge towards you than a cow. People who roam in the streets during a lockdown are often seen returning home with bruises in their backs and bums. The safest way to survive a lockdown is to stay at home and work from home. But working from home is a challenge, specially when you are in your relatively remote hometown where family and neighbors believe that the concept of working from home is an imaginary tale from the lands far far west. The IT awareness quotient of such hometowns can be measured in people branding themselves as qualified computer professionals because they know how to install Microsoft Office and in expert salesmen at computer shops explaining how one laptop is better than the other because its hard disk has higher giga-hertz!
The Story:
Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
I had to put this disclaimer for my safety, but it is up to you to believe it or not. Let's get started. Your challenge is to setup a workstation at home and manage to work the same way you are used to. The bare essentials that you need is your brain (must be functional despite the lockdown), a laptop, a manageable internet connection and electricity. Please read the next line only if you are one of the so-called IT aware people from the the kind of hometowns I mentioned above; others can skip it. When I mentioned a 'laptop' earlier, it includes the adapter as well, and the term 'electricity' refers to the thing that powers tube-lights, not fireflies. You have an advantage if you have an inverter that holds during power cuts and protects from frequent voltage fluctuations.
To setup your workstation, you should start with looking for an ideal corner in the house that is relatively quiet and gets a good wifi signal. Once you have identified potential corners, check which corner gets the best wifi signal (by installing apps like Wifi Signal Strength Meter or SpeedTest in your mobile phone). Make sure the room you choose also has a working fan because winter is gone now (Bran Stark rules Westeros now, remember?) and summer is coming.
Because you cannot sit down on the floor all day with a laptop, you must find a table. In all probability, the table in the drawing room is too tall and the tea table is too short. So you should check in the secondary kitchen room downstairs where you may find a spare table that is just the height you need. Request your wife (or beg, depending on her mood) to help you carry the table upstairs and she will readily help, though once it is done, she may give you the look that now you owe her one. This pandemic may change lives around the world, but do not expect your wife to change. There is no proof of pandemics causing positive behavioral mutations in wives.
If the table has paint stains on top, you need a table cloth to hide it and add a visual appeal to your workstation. Since your mom won't let you take the nice table cloth from the tea table since a bare tea table won't look good in front of guests (I wonder who in a sane mind would visit us as a guest in these times!), you would be lucky to find an unused plastic table cover in the store room. You should however overlook the fact that the cover is green (urgh!) and has pictures of fruits printed on it (oh no!). In normal circumstances, you would never have a green-colored, fruits-printed, plastic table cover for your workstation, but this is a lockdown and venturing out is risky. It is wiser to accept green on a table top than to accept black and blue all over your body.
When you try setting up the table, you may realize that the power socket is too far. So you should sneak the only available extension cord out from the living room (your dad will probably complain later because he will now have to walk farther to charge his phone, but you should act as if you don't care). With the laptop adapter connected to the extension cord, you can switch on the laptop. Connect to the WiFi, download and install essential software in the laptop like a pro. In short, use IE to download Chrome and then use Chrome for everything else. When you have your bookmarks synced, you will feel blessed. It takes a while to configure the laptop and you may notice using the touchpad is slowing you down; you need a mouse! Get the old-fashioned wired mouse you have and connect it to the laptop. Oh, what a drag it is to scroll on a plastic table top! If you are born in a family that reads newspapers, you are lucky. You can use an old newspaper as a mouse-pad; it works. It may be wise to place a thick newspaper below the laptop as well (because plastic table top!).
Wise men said that time is so powerful that it can bring the mightiest on his knees. I don't know those wise men personally but perhaps they said this when they were using a laptop in a standing position for too long. It hurts your legs, literally bringing you down on your knees. The harsh reality sinks in. You don't have a chair yet!
You may scramble around the house looking for a chair with proper height, but this time, both your luck and your brain will desert you. The best you can find is a comfy plastic chair, on which you have to slide to the edge and lift your hindparts every time you want to reach the keyboard. To uplift your spirit after the disappointing discovery, you need something on the chair to uplift your buttocks. Thankfully, there will be spare pillows in the house. Some day someone will use the pillows to rest their heads on, but today you can rest your buttocks on them. Worry not, for this sin will be forgiven.
You are all set now. There is a lot to catch up at work and you miss the multiple screens you are used to. Perhaps you can manage that too. Fetch the desktop monitor from the storeroom that has not been used in years or may be a decade. A few sprays of Colin should bring its shine back. Alas! your only extension cord can accommodate only one three-pin plug. You scrape through the house again for a morse of hope but return empty handed. You then remember there is a spikeguard in your bag you brought from India. You are allowed to make a few sufi dance moves of joy as the white light on the monitor glows and you take the VGA cord (it's a very old monitor from ~ 1200 max resolution era of desktops) to connect it to the laptop. Stop dancing though when you notice that the laptop has no VGA port. Sigh! You have been through so many excitements and disappointments in the few hours, if there were an API to chart them out, it would look like an ECG print out.
You need an HDMI-VGA converter, and you think there is no place in this house that you can get such a sophisticated tool lying around. Wise men said success comes to those who are persistent and keep their calm in difficult times. Again, I do not know who these wise men are but they are always right. Thanks to all the almonds you ate when they were on half-price sale in an online portal in India, you still have a good memory. Last year, you had helped the tenant who lives on the ground floor buy an HDMI-VGA converter! Thankfully, your tenant is willing to lend it to you. Viola! You have two monitors to work with.
Epilogue:
When you have setup a workstation and spent over an hour at work undisturbed, you may think you are all set now. But in the third world, if you desire something desperately, the universe conspires against you (unlike the Bollywood movie that told you otherwise). You seek peace at work, but it is not that easy. It may be the country of Buddha, but you are in the town of Rama, who partied fcuking hard for ten days when he got his kidnapped wife back (I mean, who celebrates when his wife returns home, and for ten days, really??). You should watch out for fringe elements like family, friends and neighbors. In the span of one day, these fringe elements can make up-to two attempts to unsettle you, including an incident where someone walks in during a work related call to get an old mosquito net from the room to filter the syrup of the sweets being prepared!
Out of office hours aren't peaceful either. Early next morning, you may find two of your neighbors shouting with a lot of treble in their voice. Reason: Mr A's cow delivered its dung on the doorstep of Mr B. Mr B is furious as if it was Mr A himself who took the dump. Well, a cow may be a mother goddess, but she does not have toilette etiquette. You choose not to interfere for it is none of your business.
Peace demands difficult decisions. So you should start locking the door from inside during the working hours. This little act of yours may send unsettling waves around the house; suddenly the house is short of a room. Nobody says a thing, but the fringe elements are at discomfort. Through the day, there will be intermittent knocks on the door but you should not respond. It has been hours now and nobody has knocked. The fringe elements have surrendered to you.
A week later, you are happy that things are working your way. The setup has been stable. Sometimes the pillow disappears from the chair but you can always find it in the proximity. Items from the room you hijacked have been disappearing, but it is a good thing. It means the family is taking out stuff they need since you never open the door during work hours. You can trust the knocks now, if there is one. Mostly, the knocks are to deliver food, and you can respond at will. In the times of global health emergency, puny household emergencies can wait.
Stay safe. Stay at home.
