enviable housewives

I was two years old, or even less, the last time I was home for an entire year. School, college and then office – the waking hours of my life (till Dec 2007) have been 'sacrificed' at these self-imposed altars, as naturally and irrevocably as eggs hatch into chicks, chicks grow into hens, hens lay eggs and the cycle repeats all over again. Silly allegory I agree, but I’m too hungry (it's 10:13 pm and I’m still not done feeling lazy to cook) to think of anything but FOOD. How I loved cooking when I was home. How I'd prepare him his favourite food and wait on him. Ah the noons...how I would torment my friends at work with details of how I stretched and yawned under the noon sun and rubbed Boomer’s (my boy who has a tail and stands on four legs) belly. How I would listen to Nidhi (my neighbour) singing to her 1 year old son and conclude I could have done a better job at nursery rhymes. Then, there was this person who lived some floors above us, who played the violin and I would sit and wonder whether it is a he or a she who's playing. At times I would watch our watchman, Mohan's, daughters playing ‘kitchen-kitchen’ under the tree and get all nostalgic. Mostly I’d take up some novel and let that ambrosial noon nap grow on me. How I had all the time to sit and think. How I would never, almost never, feel tired. How my world revolved around just him. And how he would envy my state of unhurried tranquility – “free from that need to be reaching somewhere, doing something”!

For women, marriage can be a great liberator, you know. “Housewives” are as acceptable as working women, but coming back home to a ‘house-husband’, waiting on you with the eve cuppa, honestly, doesn't invoke a comely picture.

Here's a little, candid confession. Before I submitted to that bracket (housewife, I mean), I would actually despise housewives (housewife girlfriends, hang on, don't take offense immediately). At times it went to the extent of equating some with "parasites", when a few of them would make their 'intentions' very apparent. Hate me for this you may but it took me some experience to see this philosophy is not just politically incorrect but plainly unjust. And I am not saying this just because I have been-there-done-that and reworked my opinion. Perhaps, I am not programmed to bask in the luxury of being one like many of us career-minded breed.

- I feel guilty of not utilizing my potential 

- Feels like a snail in the race, not competing, not learning, not growing enough

- It torments me, the state of being DEPENDENT, especially for money

Nevertheless, I hate waking up in the mornings, hate 'travelling' (never been fortunate enough to avail cab service) to and from work, hate routines, hate being time-bound. I came to Hyderabad last January (2008) and from among all lucrative propositions, I chose the one that bound me to no offices, no early mornings, but an almost unattainable target of 25 articles per month - which never happened and no deductions in my uber grand salary made. Those were the heydays, I tell you. So I was relishing both being a housewife (or rather a wife-who-stays-in-the-house) and also see my bank balance swell. Real "housewifing" happened only after October (2008), the chronicles of which I will never tire prating. And all I wanted at that time was A JOB!!!