What’s your secret superpower?
More people helping with chores has let homemakers revive dormant talents.
Chaitali Bose, 52, had always loved to sing. She’d even trained and considered performing. Then life happened. She married, had a son and spent decades as a happy homemaker. Now, with her husband home and able to help with the chores a lot more, Bose has started singing again, much to her family’s surprise and delight.
She’s connecting with extended family via video, performing with her son long-distance, and getting likes and shares from strangers.
The lockdown is helping people, old and young, rediscover talents that have lain dormant for years. A mom of two who had always had a knack for cutting hair, is having once-wary family members line up. A 67-year-old has picked up her embroidery needle after decades, and is making gifts for family. Still others are dancing, painting.
“I always had this knack for cutting hair. I used to cut my sister’s,” says Puja Agarwal Gupta, 35. “Lately, my elder son’s hair had grown to the point that it was getting in his eyes. So I had to pick up my scissors again and, seeing my work, my husband too ‘volunteered’ to get his hair cut by me,” she says.
For Bose, the singing has led to collaborative efforts and now extended family is dialling in to offer accompaniment and an audience.
“I was doing it mainly for myself,” she says. “Then my daughter-in-law in Bengaluru insisted I send videos to her, so she could upload them online. I’m not very tech-savvy and don’t know how to navigate social media very well. But when my daughter-in-law uploaded the first video, I was surprised to see so many likes and comments. That inspired me to sing more.” Bose is now recording one song a day, and her daughter-in-law is posting them at intervals. She is taking requests too.
“My son, Shibaji, is a drummer. Though he lives in Bengaluru, he collaborated with me on one song. That felt really good, like he is with me even if we can’t meet,” Bose says.
SELF-HEALING
For those far from loved ones, and fretting, creative hobbies are also calming, therapeutic.
Lily Dutta, 67, says she was in a constant state of worry when the lockdown began, because her son and his family live in Canada. “So, about a month ago, I started doing embroidery again,” says the retired professor. “My family is thankful that I’m busy in a creative task, and I’m worrying less. Now that I have started doing needlework, I plan to continue. I’m going to gift whatever I make to my family and friends.”
Her daughter, Jaylipi, says she had no idea her mother had such a gift. “She was always busy with friends and family. I’d never seen her with a needle. In the lockdown, with all the socialising stopped, some loneliness was inevitable,” she says. “I’m so happy that she has gone back to embroidery. She does it so beautifully, and it’s therapeutic.”
