am a Gen Z* who has Insta for breakfast, Linkedin for lunch and Netflix for candle light dinner. Coffee is water. Life is a dream you live everyday. One day I hit reality. Got a role of an intern in a much valued yet underrated firm – Mother Inc*. I actually got it by luck, or bad luck, well we will decide this at the end of the story. My home is my world. Mother Inc. is probably the largest firm in this world. It is the pivot around which the world revolves. Yet it consists of only 1 employee.

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So I got this role because that one employee tested positive with covid. The Inc was in a mess and so was my world. We all were figuring out food, cleaning the house, ordering groceries, etc. I wasn’t able to fathom the amount of responsibilities that suddenly dropped on my shoulders. You see my onboarding wasn’t that smooth and the only induction I got was me observing my mother in the past few years. 

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But thanks to technology I had our star employee only a call away. With my earphone on and mom on call I used to dance around the house following her instructions. I didn’t realise but I got accustomed to this routine in a few days. With practice I perfected my round rotis and the level of salt in the sabji. Steep learning curve you see.It might seem like I did it all on my own but I always had her in my head.

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But wait, I am not going to make the mistake of glorifying success without showing you what it takes to get it. Success in anything you do, any kind of job, especially in Mother Inc. requires resilience and optimism. With our star employee, my mother, just a call away, it might seem like I had it all under control, But in the back of my mind I still felt a bit clueless and kind of empty. It was a different experience for me to not see my mom not running around the house but lying down on the bed sleeping for hours in a room where I couldn’t go and comfort her.
You see, I had fears. 

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But fear just limits your abilities. To fear is to have a cloudy judgment, but to caution is to stay alert. I knew that I had to be strong for the sake of everyone. I wasn’t always sure if things would be alright or if there would be any complications or not. But I always tried to give everyone hope. Once I removed fear, all that remained was light. I always said that it would be alright and hoped that it would. Because in the end of the day it is hope that gets us through. The art of staying positive and doing what is the need of the hour with a smile on the face is something I learnt from my mother. It is this trait that helped me and my family get through these difficult times.
You see, time tests you. But, it’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

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When the going gets tough the tough gets going. It doesn’t matter if you are ready or not, sometimes life just throws surprises at you and it is up to you how you want to face them. But every experience teaches us something. No matter how much we cribbed about how monotonous our lives have become during this lockdown but this experience has taught me the value of a normal day. It taught us the value of work life balance and how important health is. I don’t think we would be taking our health or our moms for granted for a long time now.