A woman and her life

“How long will you be gone?” shouts her ama as soon as Syelma informs her mom about her wish to go out. She almost screams,”Tashi came home at 3AM only; did you ask him about his whereabouts?” But very calmly, she says, “an hour!”
Syelma is a busy working woman who has recently chosen to become a mother. Blessed with a healthy boy added to her successful career, her life ideally has to be what many crave but sadly it isn’t. She feels strangled by the pressure of being a fulltime working woman along with being a full time mother. Every day is a new battlefield for this mother cum office goer.
Rocking her insomniac son to sleep, she finally gets to call it a night only after midnight. Heavily doused with sleep, she immediately falls asleep. Come dawn, a new race begins.
“Your mom gets up before you to cook breakfast for you, why do you fuss so much?” Tashi asks his wife who is fumbling and feeding their son before washing and getting dressed, making herself presentable enough for work. What the husband sees is the kitchen clatter and the ready breakfast after a rested brain with fulfilled whole night’s sleep. What the husband doesn’t see is the emotional outburst from a woman who has had inadequate sleep (five hours of sleep at the most) and is ensuring that the child is well fed so that she doesn’t have to rush home before the stipulated feeding hour. Who likes looking at stern face of the boss and unfriendly glares from colleagues because you get to go home after every three hours to feed your child?
“You are paid to work!” she hears this line every time she has to seek permission to take her ailing child to hospital or take leave to attend her sick baby. Getting her office work done, preparation, presentation, meetings are juggled besides ensuring the house is well stocked for the whole family. Entertaining the guests and the weekend cleaning and dusting and washing is an unnoticed chore that Syelma carries out.
The house is neat and clean; presentably draped and the larder well stocked. The baby is healthy and well fed. All is well in the family. But the minute Syelma decides to claim an hour just to pamper her stressed out self, hell breaks loose. Her own mother allies up with the rest in the family to question her integrity,”what about the baby?”
Don’t they see that all of them in the house get their full beauty sleep and just carry out the manual chores while the poor woman is shredded into pieces with stress at work and home? The husband who is either found lazing around the computer or TV screen doesn’t even care to give his wife the unclaimed stress unwinding hour. How dare he claim he love his wife when he doesn’t realize the stress he has left his wife buried in?
Syelma mentioned above isn’t just one woman, Syelma here is every Bhutanese woman who silently goes on multitasking and ensuring that her career and her home are sparklingly taken care of while she herself drowns deeper and deeper into a machine like monster who the others don’t even consider human enough to deserve a break of an hour.
Do you think there will ever be a moment when the man in the house will look in the eye of the woman he claims he loves, and say, ”Darling, today I’ll take care of the kids and home, you go, take a break.” And actually send her to just spend some time without having to carry the baggage of what the kids might be up to? Or plan what to cook for dinner? Or think of a face to put up in front of the boss while seeking permission to take a day’s leave from office?
Will such a day ever dawn in the lives of the modern day Bhutanese woman? Will the mother in law ever realize that her daughter in law who has worked full day in the office is too tired to even lift her limb forget about fulfilling her dream of cooking the meal for the whole family? Will the husband who talk about stress at work realize that his wife who is a full time wife and mother also goes to office and has work pressure just like him?