In the poignant short story, A Temporary Matter, Jhumpa Lahiri talks of the despondent and distant Shoba and Shukumar, who live in Boston. Thanks to an electricity cut for an hour every day they face for a week, the couple is forced to spend time together. Slowly, secrets emerge—Shukumar says he used to fantasise about thin models when Shoba was pregnant, and Shoba returns the hurt by confessing that she never liked the one poem he managed to publish. At the end of the week, Shoba tells Shukumar she is ready to move out, thanks to the "things they now knew".

As we brace ourselves for another few weeks of lockdown and self- isolation, couples have to face the fact that they are going to be alone, together, forced to talk and entertain, and then get ready to adapt to this new, hopefully temporary, situation. In China, where the coronavirus outbreak allegedly originated, over 300 couples are believed to have scheduled divorce appointments since February 24, which the authorities are attributing to them spending "too much time in close quarters under quarantine". But as a happy Instagram user, who put up a loving picture with her husband in quarantine, said, "Isn't this what you signed up for?"