Winning Lockdown

Chapter 1: Getting Bombed

"Ma, I don't want to study. I want to play", wailed the six-year-old as she tried to mimic the antics of the drama queen from her grandma's favourite serial, but this time Kyra wasn't making much headway in amusing her mother to let her go as her mom stood lopsided shaking her head with an amused smile and raised an eyebrow.

"Kyra, we need to learn to read and write otherwise we won't be able to go on adventures like papa." Shivya was trying to sound as calm as possible while secretly thanking God that she had already settled down into an almost functioning work from home schedule. She was already sharing numerous tips and tricks with her colleagues on how to get into a work from home schedule while maintaining peace at home since the first week of lockdown. As a blessing in disguise, Shivya had been forced to apply for the work from home option when she was not able to find a stay at home nurse to look after mother who had fractured her leg after slipping during her morning walk and her husband needed to leave to Dubai to give training to the clients employees for their new product that his team had developed. It was amusing to hear the stories her fellow female colleagues shared on their whatsapp group of how their precious bundles of joy couldn't understand that mommy and daddy had to still work even though they were at home and that all days were not Saturday and Sunday. Numerous videos of babies getting their heartbroken when hearing their parks or malls were closed due to Corona kept popping up on all the social media platforms that Shivya had to monitor for both personal and professional reasons. But nothing prepared her on how to react when her dear little one announced that she didn't want to read or write.

"We can go on adventures. You can read for both of us." Growled Kyra standing like a lion and prancing with a menacing look fixed on Shivya. She was going to put up a good fight before sitting down to write today. Shivya sighed as she contemplated if she should just give up and call it a day when her phone rang breaking her thoughts. Kyra was quick to react and used the distraction to skip past her mother's slim frame and enter the sanctuary of her granny's room. The loud chuckle and gasp from within told Shivya that Kyra had won today's battle fair and square. There was going to be no more lessons today.

"The phone isn't going to save you every time." called out Shivya with a reluctant and amused smile as she wound her thick raven colour hair into a tight bun at the top of her head. The name flashing on her mobile screen made Shivya to quickly think of whether she had missed any deadlines or scheduled meeting as she slowly felt anxiety and panic stretch their icy tendrils around her heart and mind making her break into a cold sweat. It's not every day that your boss's boss calls you without a warning at the end of a workday. With rumours of more and more employees in the IT Sector facing the uncertainty of getting benched, this call made Shivya pray that she was not going to be revising her CV on linked in.

"I'm sorry if this is a bad time Ms Shivya, but something urgent has come up. Please join the online meeting on Google meet up with your team members in exactly 15 minutes. I have already mailed the meeting link and password to you and your team members." Mr.Khatri's voice sounded breathless as if he was juggling knives with one hand while talking to her. Filled with trepidation Shivya walked into her office room and checked her mail to find the grim summoning to the dreaded meeting Mr Khatri had just informed her about.

"It can't be bad." She lied to herself as she fixed her hair and applied eyeliner to her eyes. "Well at least I can look good while getting put on the bench through an online meeting." she thought smugly to herself. She gave herself one last look in the mirror to see if everything was perfect and sat down in front of her laptop. With a deep breath to calm her racing heart and a quick glance to check if all her current project files were at hand, Shivya logged in for the meeting with Mr Khatri and her team members with a fake sweet smile plastered on her face which did a good job of hiding her anxiety.

The awkwardness was palpable among all the team members which struck odd to Shivya. Most of them had been working on the same team for nearly 3 years to date and the rest had joined in a year ago. Exchanging hellos and how are you?, while shuffling paper or adjusting their shirt collars or just out right staring down at their phones made Shivya to step up and lighten the mood by asking everyone to lift their tea cups for a toast to themselves on surviving 3 weeks of lockdown. A smattering of laughter among everyone did ease the tension a bit which roared back viciously into everyone's heart when the last person to the meeting logged in. "Shocked" was the mild word to use to describe how Shivya felt when she saw the blood shot eyes and unkempt hair of the dishevelled man that was now apologising to everyone for being late and also thanking everyone for coming together at such a short notice.

"As you all know that our business is quite low and we don't see a very conducive environment for international travel and tourism after the lockdown. I am forced to think about cutting down taskforces if we are not able to come up with ways to stay afloat. Since many of you have experiences in different fields that are on the digital platform the team may have to be split. But if you are all able to come up with a plan that would be sustainable by the end of two weeks then I would consider keeping the team together. Another thing I would like to share with you is that my wife and your team lead, Ms Jyothi went into premature delivery yesterday. We are blessed with a healthy baby girl. Both mother and child are fine though we may have to stay at the hospital for a few more days. I'll leave you to discuss of what can be done. Im very sorry to drop this bad news on you."

Mr Khatri logged out as fast as he had logged in and shattered their minds with his quick and rapid speech. The chocking silence made Shivya want to scream. Instead she mustered all the grace and calmness she could gather from the turmoil raging within her and asked everyone to stay calm and try to think of simple ideas of what they can do together and send a brief mail explaining the concept by end of the week. She also asked everyone to give in a status report by the end of tomorrow of where they were on their current projects. Amid a lot of mumblings and reluctance and outbreaks of emotions that erupted after Shivya gave her instructions, she excused herself and logged out. She knew she was going to receive a lot of wailing calls and griping messages on whatsapp from her team mates but that was a problem she would deal with afterwards.

This was worse than what Shivya had expected. Though she was supposed to be jumping with excitement at becoming team lead, Shivya felt as if she was being dressed up to be the proverbial scapegoat. After washing off all her make-up and putting away her laptop and office files, Shivya decided to fix herself a fresh cup tea and then sit down to think about the task at hand.