THE OTHER WOMAN

“Hellllllllp!! Hellllllllp!!!”… That was me at the end of the first 24 hours of my ‘help’lessness! Every cell, every fibre, every bone and joint in my body protested vehemently in unison, refusing to budge another inch! I barely managed to crawl into bed at the stroke of midnight in the hope of catching some sleep, albeit after setting the alarm for the next morning. All for the other woman!

The person who was the sheet anchor of our lives, at the very core of our existence, had taken leave for a period of 5 days and with her, all the peace, comfort and order in my life seemed to have left! I wasn’t exactly what you would call ‘caught unawares’! In fact, it was a well planned hiatus for both of us…. hers, from my household, and mine, from my profession. I was even looking forward to staying at home round the clock and being at the helm of affairs!

Being a professional woman in a profession that has absolutely no respect for orderly schedules or timings, l have always had to depend on the services of helping hands to get through my days and life. Marriage and kids brought their own baggage and along with the adage ‘the more, the merrier’, a footnote ‘ the more, the worrier’ got added!! The number of helps, too, increased proportionally to the number of household members and the work it all entailed. But, for all practical purposes, the reins of the household were in one pair of hands…the other woman’s!

Now, one of the trappings of a white collar job is the inherent snobbishness, the feeling of superiority that makes its way into our heads, stealthily, almost on tiptoes. Somewhere we begin to think that our jobs are the most difficult, that we are the most qualified, most educated and hence most entitled, so on and so forth. And truth be told, many of us consider household chores to be beneath us…a domain that needs no great education or skills! Right? Wrong, wrong, oh so very wrong!

After just 5 whole days of mothering the entire household from A.M to P.M, l can tell you such notions are nothing but a whole lot of hogwash! By what stretch of imagination do we, the so called ‘elite’, educated women, conclude that running a full fledged household is inferior in any way to our professions?! In fact, it needs not just the same amount of cognitive capacity but better reflexes and higher levels of resourcefulness!

If we, the ‘educated’ women, are stressed about deadlines and productivity and assignments etc in our professional lives, l have realised home-makers and people who help run households are no less stressed with the nitty gritties of daily living! Full respect to them and the comfort, support and safety-net that they provide, to us working women!

My appreciation for my pillar of support, the eponymous ‘other woman’ here, has increased manifold after having practically lived in her shoes for the past few days. From having to send the children off to school ( a monotonous, grinding chore that honestly speaking l have mostly been spared of, thanks to her !) with a full tummy and filled school tiffin box, to arranging for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the entire family (l had begun to wonder if we were not having one too many meals! What is the need to eat so much?!), to supervising the laundry, the sweeping and mopping, general housekeeping and not to forget, the food supplies! Phew! It felt like one long, unending cycle! It left me completely winded!

 It dawned on me that with her around, l am spared of the pains of having to think ahead, of having to be constantly on my toes in my head(!), of having to be in a ‘switched-on’ mode all the time. To make a long story short, this look at the pasture on the other side told me that no, it isn’t all that ‘greener ‘ and yes, l am indeed blessed to have help in running my household smoothly, each day, everyday!

I would like to believe that it is true of many, if not all, of us professional women, that we owe our relatively comfortable lives and careers to these ‘other’ (pun intended!) women, without whose help we wouldn’t have made it. And today being International Women’s day, what better day to pay a tribute! God bless their league!