At the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic, a series of unprecedented restrictions were announced. Among other things, this also meant that the gates of our residential society in Bangalore were closed to the daily domestic help and other service personnel. Consequently, the residents’ WhatsApp group became the site for much hue and cry, and it seemed like the virus was no threat before the inconvenience caused by the ban on letting in the people who help us cook and clean everyday.

To me, what stood out most clearly was that nearly every single person who raised this complaint was a woman. Women residents of this upwardly mobile upper middle class residential society were most eager to challenge and revert this ban on the entry of domestic help.

Why was this the pattern? In times of social isolation, my best bet was to conjecture.

— Was the woman carrying the weight of the domestic chores?
— Was the woman more particular about order, cleanliness and the goodness of home cooked meals? This is a familiar gender stereotype.
— Were the men who were staying by themselves, or in a non-familial setup, less particular about order and cleanliness, as goes the gender stereotype? Or were they more willing to be hands-on around the house?

Was it that the modern woman, in her quest to be more independent and empowered, may have grown accustomed to routinely outsourcing domestic chores to other women on the socio-economic margins?

In upwardly mobile urban residential colonies, the modern day ‘equal marriage’ is at the centre of the family. But, when the precarious order of everyday life is disrupted, as it was by the pandemic, how much ‘at home’ are women within the home?