The ongoing lockdown, with couples home-bound 24/7, isn’t helping domestic bliss, if one goes by the spike in cases of domestic disputes reaching police stations in Ranchi.

A police official at district police headquarters said that on March 30, when they compiled all the cases of husband-wife disputes, the number came to 29 in one week. Usually, the number is four or five a week.

“When we compiled data on March 30, we noticed as many as 29 cases of disputes between husband and wife at various police stations across the city. Kotwali police station topped with nine such cases, followed by Lower Bazar police station with four cases, Sadar and Bariatu police stations with three cases each. Other police stations also have one or two cases,” the official said.

Problems between urban couples, who normally stay out of each other’s hair for hours at a stretch, have intensified during the lockdown.

From a woman complaining to the police that her husband didn’t pull his weight and she did all the housework, to another saying her husband sneaked out with friends to come home drunk, the fights are many and patience is wearing thin.

To add to the misery, couples have more chores to do as most house helps are not venturing out. Even in many urban set-ups, it means that the woman has to do the dishes, while the man watches TV or surfs online.

The policeman told The Telegraph that a woman turned up at Lalpur police station saying that her husband verbally abused her when she asked him to do some household chores instead of watching TV all the time. Another woman reached Sadar police station saying her husband assaulted her after coming home drunk. “Her husband had quietly gone out to meet his friend despite the lockdown and had come home drunk,” the official added.

Policemen are often at a loss at how to handle these cases.

Both Lalpur and Kotwali police stations OCs Arvind Kumar Singh and Brij Kumar confessed that they found handling such cases “the toughest”.

Lalpur OC Singh said he asked the woman whose husband didn’t share household chores to be patient. “I also received some complaints over the phone. The minor disputes were solved over phone,” OC Singh said.

Director of the Davis Institute of Psychiatry, Hazel Davis, said creativity was the key to survive a lockdown.

“When someone is tense or scared, he or she disturbs the person they are closest to. Also, we are not used to 24/7 proximity nowadays. We all need our space and me-time, which gets difficult during the enforced togetherness. Doing some creative work is the only solution,” she said.

Professor of Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (Rinpas), Dr K.S. Sengar, agreed with Davis.

“Stress is the main reason for the fights, I think. Couples can try and bust stress by watching good entertainment on the various platforms available nowadays, reading books, playing with children, trying out new things to do,” he said.

What about husbands not sharing household chores?

“It is takes time for a person to change his life-long habits,” Sengar admitted.