Not being a conventional wife who runs a home single-handedly, I am often faced by raised eyebrows and mumbled undertones when I mention to anyone that I have employed a full time maid to cook and keep home for my family of three!!!
I cease to understand why the world considers it an irreparable flaw if a married Indian woman cannot run a home efficiently without hired help. I admit I am such a woman but its not a fact am ashamed of. Maybe am not meant to do so. I do realize it took me and my dear husband sometime to reach the conclusion that my priorities lie elsewhere.
Relatives and so-called friends discuss me as a spoilt brat with a bad upbringing and consequently an inefficient wife and mother. But I turn a deaf ear to them. I admit am unlike my mother, aunts and women of yesteryears who took pride in housekeeping by doing all chores by themselves without a frown and were thus christened perfect wives.
I too can earn the same title—but at the cost of neglecting my child, husband and trampling over my hobbies and interests that make my husband so proud of me—would I like to do that –no way!
Perhaps if I was working outside my home, bearing up heavy traffic to reach my job, taking a stuffed lunch and returning in the evening totally exhausted but with a good salary, it would have stopped wagging tongues as it would be ‘justified’ keeping a maid full time. But the fact that am a qualified postgraduate teacher freelancing from home, am an easy target for commenting during social gatherings.
No one sees me when am fresh to receive and hug my child when she returns from school. No one knows that I devote full time to her homework and feel elated at her good results. No one hears the bedtime stories I tell her creating a wonderland in her little imagination. Channelising my energies for my child is what I take pride in.
Probably if I was married to a man who demanded food cooked and served by the wife and wanted a meticulously clean home made spotless only by her, I also would be like the many women who arise early at the crack of dawn, work vigorously the whole day, struggle with the kids’ homework and drop dead exhausted at night.
But by God’s grace I have been blessed with an understanding husband who supports me in exploiting my talents and gives me a life of comfort by eating maid-cooked food—though occasionally he demands a dish which only I can make!! Why, then should I bother about mean side-glances, which spell jealousy at my life?
At least am not bothered to remove dust after a dust storm, looking over boiling milk, scrubbing heavy utensils, putting out laundry in the hot sun, nagging my child and trying to find time at the end of the day, in my bedraggled condition, to massage my cracked heels.
Instead, I begin the day by thanking God for all am blessed with, patiently answering my kid’s innumerable questions, doing correspondence courses, freelancing for dailies, throwing a glowing smile at my husband, taking a brisk walk, eating warm rotis with my family, cleansing my skin off the grime and finally falling in my beloved’s arms for a blissful slumber.
I am comfortable in my lifestyle surrounded by love, satisfaction, space and the ability to voice my thoughts by writing. If I can buy a bit of comfort and happiness from life and give the same in return to my family, I wonder why should it bother anyone, do you?
