This series is an unperturbed peek into the ordinary life of my friend and neighbour. While her everyday domestic experience during the lockdown is filled with banal activities—from brushing to cooking, baking and unceremonious waves of laughter—she has also found the time to reflect on her own aspirations and hopes from life. 

 

My neighbour next door has been recovering and reclaiming her space, living alone during this pandemic, in her brother's absence. Although the past months were certainly dispiriting and difficult, she believes the monotony and mundanity of household chores— cooking, cleaning, gardening etc. have acquired a new kind of appeal, evoking qualities that she had never really associated with the tasks earlier. 

Ensconced in the long shadow of seemingly insignificant and banal household chores, this particular milieu is now starting to become a conduit for meditation on life itself. Nearing her 30s, she ruminates how living alone during this pandemic, claiming her space and wading through life alongside everyday chores has roused a possible epiphany of choosing to be by herself without a lifelong companion as necessitated by society. Well aware of the challenges, compromises as well as her own individuality and agency, it seems that she is now starting to question patriarchal authority and reflect on her desire to remain free from its clutches.