‘However, in March 2020, as lockdown was imminent and part-time maids were rendered unavailable by the halt in transport, mops stormed into Indian homes. The ‘new normal’ had entered our world and the mop was a supporting actor in the changes it wrought.’

‘…To use lockdown as a means to suppress infection is a fallacy for various reasons….You can’t sustainedly keep down infections unless you keep lockdown forever, which is obviously absurd.’ In conversation with epidemiologist Professor Sunetra Gupta.

‘I don’t necessarily want to go back in time, although of late the idea doesn’t sound half-bad, considering the approaching elections. However, hypothetically speaking, if I did have access to a time machine, I would definitely not give up on the opportunity of some temporal globe-trotting.’