The whole world is in power-saving mode at the moment, thanks to Uncle Covid.

There’s a new oxymoron doing the rounds in the Cov’Indian context: A country of 1.3 billion has come TOGETHER to stay AWAY from each other.

The best part about our seemingly sempiternal staycation is that there’s no FOMO (fear of missing out). Nothing’s happening out there, anyway.

Locked in the confines of our home as co-prisoners, my husband and I have given new monikers to each other: I call him Uncle Covid, and he calls me Aunt Corona.

This way, every time we address each other, the virulent undertones come out loud and clear.

Home is where you have the freedom to learn.

And homing in with Uncle Covid, I’ve learned that marriage is the chief cause of divorce.

Getting on each other’s nerves (and intestines, and capillaries) we’re currently doing a refreshers course in all the reasons why we should never have married.

Every morning we both look at each other and wonder afresh what a magnificent person like him/me is doing with a weirdo like me/him.

It’s commendable that in spite of being married for decades, not once have we considered divorce.

Murder, yes, but divorce, never.

We’re sleeping in separate rooms.

We’re having dinner apart.

We’re taking independent vacations to the balcony.

In short, we’re doing everything we can to keep our marriage together.

Yet our knack to exchange annoying vibes across bolted doors and isolated rooms is pretty spectacular.

The only time we find each other’s company scintillating is during happy hours (in the p.m.) when shot glasses clink excitedly drowning our Covid woes — one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

Sometimes through El Tesoro-tinted senses and Pinot Noir-plastered pupils, Uncle Covid notices a cobweb in the corner of the bar, and thus ensues an argument.

A crack in the wall paint, a tea stain on the table, a pimple on my dimple — no reason too inconsequential for us to start a squabble.

Yesterday we even locked horns on the number of tunaks and tuns in the tun tunak tun song.

Covid-laden darts are thrown at each other with viral relish and abandon.

Occasionally, Uncle Covid’s pore great grand uncle and Aunt Corona’s pore great grant aunt are pulled out from their graves and invited to join as cannon fodder in the show.

Sometimes things turn ugly.

But then home is where you have the freedom to be ugly.

I am discovering how awesome beetle brows look on me and how ethereal my face looks behind that mesh of dark facial hair.

I’m watching the pepper in my hair turn to salt.

I’m watching the sugar in my food coalesce to lard (nee love handles).

I’m watching my body become increasingly orbicular (matlab round — for the non-Tharoor’ophiles of the world).

Like Mr. Tharoor, I never use a big word where a diminutive one will do.

I don’t do round — round is too pedestrian. I do orbicular — a’la Veronica Lodge of the erstwhile Archie comics, who claimed that Lodges don’t sweat, they perspire.

BTW all ye Fellow Orbiculars, do not despair.

According to the WRS (World Rotund Society), round is a legit shape.

Coming back to ugly, deserted beauty parlors have spawned a new species — The Ugly Beauty.

The Covidien era is all set to go down the annals of 2020 history as the Unibrowed Duckling Era.

Many a swan has shed her acquired elan.

The only consolation is that many a macho stud too has landed on his ego’ator with a thud.

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy and they refused to accept my ID saying that it had my daughter’s photo!

Being home has its advantages.

For one, you need no credit cards.

Earlier I used to keep my credit card in a glass of water in the freezer to fight that impulse-buying urge while I waited for the ice to thaw.

Now my credit card is gathering cobwebs in my wallet, which is gathering dust in my drawer, which is choc-a-bloc with undoable to-do lists.

Being home has its advantages.

Home is the only bar that doesn’t kick you out when the clock strikes get lost.

It’s also the one restaurant that’s open 24/7 and doesn’t hand you a bill at the end of your meal.

The only downside of this restaurant is that if you share my culinary skills, your family can’t tell Shepherd’s Pie from stuffed turai.

Yesterday I cooked chicken biryani and my kids said Mom you make awesome oats!

They trot to the dining table like a bunch of warriors and prefer to keep wearing their facemasks while eating.

They are discovering that parents aren’t such bad people to live with once you get to know them.

Being home has its advantages.

No social norms to govern you, no professional protocols to piss you.

It is your legit pajama zone.

You can party cheap and cheerful.

No pants are the best pants, and pajama parties are the best parties.

Go ahead and choose pajamas over people.

They don’t constrict you, they don’t restrict you; best of all, they don’t judge you.

There are many ways you can enjoy being trapped at home once you decide to just go ahead and make your own fun

• Strike a rapport with that stranger called YOU!
• Replace small talk with a brisk walk or enjoy solitary walks and window talks
• Enjoy a break from tiresome evenings stuck in a loop of meaningless conversations. Create your own inane banter
• Walk the talk or just talk about walking — as you chip away another packet of Lays
• Bake a cake — or at least threaten your family that you’re going to bake one. My family gets united only when they want to stop me from carrying out such a threat.
• Pour a peg and shake a leg. Dance away the Covid blues. Do silly. Do loud. Do together best of all.
• Write that novel. After spending four weeks with one’s spouse, anyone can become a writer.
• Finish that painting. Since you can’t go paint the town red, stick a banana on the wall and put silver tape on it. If you don’t want to ape Maurizio Cattelan, you could replace the banana with a zucchini.
• Learn that piano. It will help keep you in tune with each other’s thinking and mood swings.
• Give your pet a makeover. Or hang out with your furry companions — the two-legged ones (thanks to parlors not being counted in essential services).
• Try a home spa. Light some candles, put on some relaxing music, take a long bubble bath, and float some paper boats in the tub.
• Chomp a burger with abandon, chap-chap kar ke — table manners can go take a hike
• Extend your reading habits beyond tweets, Facebook updates, or the ingredients on your instant oatmeal packet
• Put some passion into that passion project languishing on the back burner
• Reduce your carbon footprint. Read, nap, think, meditate, NetFlix, youtube

Think of all the oxygen you’re setting free by remaining indoors.

Who knows, the Covid virus might die of inhaling too much oxygen!!

—Puja Bhakoo, author, MOOD SWINGS