{"id":6473,"date":"2016-03-13T06:24:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T00:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=6473"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:12:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:42:43","slug":"plumber-electrician-cook-rolled-into-one-how-to-ace-lockdown-induced-diy-lifestyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=6473","title":{"rendered":"Plumber, Electrician, &#038; Cook Rolled into One: How to Ace Lockdown-induced DIY Lifestyle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<span class=\"dropcap\">I<\/span>t\u2019s no longer the view from #beachfeet that earns you applause on Instagram, it\u2019s the almost-roundness of your chapatis at just the third attempt. Coordinated clothes for a party is no longer #couplegoals \u2013 it\u2019s sweatily holding aloft a jhadu in a clean living room. Want to show off your super(wo)manly powers? 50 km bike rides logged on Strava can wait. How\u2019s this broken switch I fixed all by myself?\n\nWelcome to the era of lockdown-induced DIY. Where the increase in our household skills is matched only by our respect for the people we normally paid to do them for us. Household help, cooks, carpenters, electricians, and \u2013 god forbid you need to arrive at this realisation \u2013 plumbers.\n\nThe privileged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/middle-class-mentality-indian-families\/\">middle-class<\/a> India to which you and I belong is willing to do many things, but getting our hands dirty has traditionally not been one of them. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/interiors-living\/article\/2155394\/ikea-india-more-colour-less-diy-and-no-leather-or\">in India<\/a>, IKEA had to modify their usual strategy of \u201cwe sell disassembled, you figure it out\u201d. One analyst even labelled it the country\u2019s \u201cdo-it-for-me\u201d culture. Besides, for a country that looks down upon \u201chaath ka kaam\u201d, it is no surprise that basic home skills are never made part of our curriculum at school.\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p> DIY is fun, rewarding, healthy and great for Instagram validation.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nAll of it can be chalked down to privilege, but there is a flip side to it. Our massive population means that cheap labour is abundantly available, and we\u2019re all too happy to offload these tasks. What\u2019s more, we could use the help; as a country we spend too much time in some of the worst traffic in the world, if not clocking in some of the longest workweeks. It would be uncharitable to expect someone to have the energy to assemble a table after braving Bangalore\u2019s traffic or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/people\/the-seat-mafia-of-mumbai-locals\/\">Mumbai\u2019s trains<\/a>. We\u2019re happy to pay for this to be done, especially since it is just a fraction of what the Western world would have to pay.\n\nI got first-hand experience of this when I vacationed in the Netherlands last year &#8211; where an AirBNB host told me to protect the key with my life \u2013 else I\u2019d have to pay 150 euros to pry open the lock. That\u2019s \u20b913,000 for something I can get Asif bhai to do for \u20b950! A friend of mine who stays in the country was chastised by a painter who was summoned to paint a small part of a wall, saying he should be able to do it himself.\n\nBut Covid-19 seems to have necessitated a big change. Whether driven by boredom, confinement or just sheer necessity, we\u2019re DIYing more than before. The most apparent examples of this \u2013 if Instagram is anything to go by \u2013 is cooking. As supplies are getting more accessible and personal confidence steadily increases, so has our bravado in the kitchen. This was summed up quite nicely by Zomato, which constantly hits the nail on the head on social media:\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586322218.png\" alt=\"1\" width=\"628\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61901\" \/>\n\nMy own cooking skills have evolved from, \u201cLet\u2019s dump all these vegetables and call it a salad\u201d to an actually edible meal of masoor dal and rice. My biggest improvement has come in my dosa-making ability. Previously, despite my South Indian heritage, my attempts yielded what could at best be described as \u201crice bhurji\u201d. Now, though, I can make something that won\u2019t make my mom (or brand of tawa) consider disowning me. Here\u2019s my transformation!\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586322313.png\" alt=\"2\" width=\"591\" height=\"331\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61903\" \/>\n<em>Show me a better culinary transformation in 2 years. I\u2019ll wait.<\/em>\n\nWhat changed? Well, for one, I follow recipes. This was quite the departure from my earlier mad scientist approach to cooking. My predilection for spicy food often meant I added one green chilli too many, and way too many unpleasant mornings in\u2026 you know. This has now changed, now that cooking has evolved into being a necessity rather than a whim. There\u2019s only so many cheese sandwiches you can have before your arteries start crying.\n\nPlus, there is the endorphin high yielded by doing simple tasks that you thought you couldn\u2019t accomplish. \u201cI cleaned my AC filter\u201d is one such thing \u2013 it sounds complicated, but is an extremely simple five-minute process. Here\u2019s the sparkling fella now, fresh out of ablutions administered by yours truly.\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586361271.jpg\" alt=\"1\" width=\"229\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61975\" \/>\n\nAnd why, didn\u2019t I always promise I\u2019d clean out the computer keyboard someday? *cracks knuckles*\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arrecloudinary-ap-south-1.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/res\/arre\/image\/upload\/Arre-6-scaled_tg627s-e1586361674334\/1586361225.jpg\" alt=\"1\" width=\"724\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61978\" \/>\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arrecloudinary-ap-south-1.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/res\/arre\/image\/upload\/image5_bpoulf-e1586347047969\/1586346894.png\" alt=\"1\" width=\"646\" height=\"407\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61936\" \/>\nI also took the opportunity to clean my air purifier, washing machine drum and microwave. While many things need to be left to the experts \u2013 medical infra is stretched as it is and I don\u2019t need to burden an ER with stupidity like electrocuting myself. But for other things, there are several easy fixes. Trust me, there are YouTube videos for just about anything.\n\nFixing cycle gears? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gwBQxhZhKnE\">Check<\/a>.\n\nGuitar neck bent? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HWAmAyLoBgs\">Gotcha covered<\/a>.\n\nSpilt beer on the mattress? YT don\u2019t judge, it just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sTq8XqDYVjI\">gives solutions<\/a>.\n\nReally, with basic household stuff, you should be able to do a whole bunch of things yourself. My wife, for example, has diverted her attention to gardening (or, given that we live in Mumbai, window-plant-ering)\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586361231.jpg\" alt=\"1\" width=\"435\" height=\"338\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61974\" \/>\nRealising that the lockdown might take a while to get fully lifted, we did a \u201cmaintenance run\u201d of the house \u2013 oiling the locks, tightening screws, cleaning up corners we suspected were breeding new life forms, and suchlike, before disaster struck. We even got two fire extinguishers, surely a milestone in our middle-class DIYdom.\n\nAnd there\u2019s something lovely seeing people celebrate such small acts of DIY, considering them Instagram story-worthy: I\u2019ve seen friends of mine service their own cycles, make bird-feeders, their own soaps, and even make their own replacement \u201cear socks\u201d for their glasses. Not kidding.\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586322214.png\" alt=\"5\" width=\"370\" height=\"283\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61907\" \/>\n\n<em>We\u2019re refraining from a \u201cspectacular\u201d pun\u2026 oops.<\/em>\n\nIf you head over to Google Trends, you will notice a considerable spike for all DIY-related searches since March. <a href=\"https:\/\/trends.google.com\/trends\/explore?geo=IN&#038;q=cooking\">\u2018Cooking\u2019 has increased 120%<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/trends.google.com\/trends\/explore?geo=IN&#038;q=DIY\">\u2018DIY\u2019<\/a> by a similar amount, and so on. And sure looks like April is going to see a lot of considerably <a href=\"https:\/\/trends.google.com\/trends\/explore?q=how%20to%20clean%20keyboard\">cleaner keyboards<\/a>:\n\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1586361228.jpg\" alt=\"1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"360\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-61976\" \/>\n\n<em>\u201cHow to clean keyboards\u201d, Google Trends<\/em>\n\nAll this DIY work I\u2019ve been doing has increased my respect for people who do this on a daily basis. It\u2019s one thing to feel proud about doing housework and showing off, but it surely is another to thanklessly do it every day. Hopefully, having to clean our own houses will give us a sense of empathy when maids come back home, or not yell at a carpenter as to why it\u2019s taking so much time to fix a shelf.\n\nIn the meantime, while we will eventually transition back from DIY to DIFY (Do It For You), right now, I\u2019m trying to learn as many new skills as possible. It\u2019s fun, rewarding, healthy and great for Instagram validation.\n\nNow if you\u2019ll excuse me, I have to go set dinner. That risotto ain\u2019t going to prepare itself.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Privileged middle-class India has never had to get our hands dirty at \u201cmanual\u201d tasks like cleaning and fixing broken switches. But the Covid-19 lockdown has ensured that many of us are doing on our own things we might have paid people to do for us. This week, I honed my cooking skills and cleaned out my AC filter and my computer keyboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":6481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10108],"tags":[10510,10402,10511,10512,10513,10514,10414,10515],"class_list":["post-6473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus-pandemic","tag-covid19","tag-diy-lockdown","tag-do-it-youself","tag-lessons-from-lockdown21","tag-lockdown-lessons","tag-milennials","tag-privilege-of-indians"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Plumber, Electrician, &amp; Cook Rolled into One: How to Ace Lockdown-induced DIY Lifestyle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Privileged middle-class India has never had to get our hands dirty at \u201cmanual\u201d tasks like cleaning and fixing broken switches. 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