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?

I am Old and Happy!

"Was there a clarion call? Did you see the stars fleeting around?" I sat dumbfounded, my eyes wide with speechlessness as my melodramatic friend soaked me in her queries about the feeling of falling in love.

"Hellooo! Were you born yesterday? And me generations before you?" I felt the pounding response in my mind but I gave her my sincerest looking smile. "No,Dear! Its nothing like that!" I replied calmly. I wonder from where that calmness came in my tone when I was actually fuming like an active volcano about to erupt.

She took a tight grip of my wrist as if by doing so she would meet her soul mate in my throbbing nerves. Nerves! My God! I never realized my nerves were so visible! Age surely seemed to have taken a firm grip on me. Well! forty years of life is not so young for the nerves to remain hidden under the wrinkled skin.

Forty years! Time seemed to have grown double pairs of wings to take a faster ride. It felt like only yesterday I walked in the corridors of our school;hand in hand with my friend and here she was seated in front of me still looking the same while I looked like her mother(how I wish I could say like her sister!).

Marriage and Motherhood ages you more than your actual age I guess. I saw a tint of envy in my own eyes as I stared in her eyes, she looked so lovely and YOUNG. I checked myself, my fingers looked awful with its nails clipped short and without any colors. I had decided to keep my nails clipped as soon as I became a mother for I didn't want my nails to make an accidental scratch on my baby. My collection of nail polish too went in the trash bin at the same time around for I didn't want to take any chance with the chipped pieces fall into my kid's meals.

On the other hand,my friend's nails, perfectly manicured stretched out like a freshly mowed lawn.
As she lifted her hands to tie her ponytail, I saw her shirt rise up to show a clean waistline. Ech!I wouldn't dare to wear a low lying jeans like her;wouldn't people see the stretch marks from my pregnancy?

"Mama!" we both turned our heads to my two teenage daughters running towards me. As they came and hugged me, I saw something in my friend's eyes that I was thankful I didn't suffer- I saw pain of loneliness in her eyes! While mine own danced with joys of fulfilled parenthood.

Breakfast? Who has time?

In another hour’s time, people would be eating their lunch but I sit, eyeing my breakfast lying near me while my li’l boy is latched on tightly on my lap. My toasts seem to get browner and stare at me with coldness for not consuming it while hot and tasty. But what can a mother do? So, I continue to wait till my li’l one surrenders himself to sleep.
Finally! I see his eyes shut and he delinks his tiny lips from my breast. Happy that its breakfast time now, I gently pick him up but I can’t put him to bed before giving him a good burp. I set him close to my bosom,’GROWLLLLLLLLLLLLLL’ my tummy seems to have become an enraged lion while my li’l one, startled by that, opens his eyes. Well! Breakfast has to wait for some more time.
While he continues to enjoy the lap time, I gaze at his tiny face and with my finger, I draw invisible lines of love. His forehead- I can’t help noticing those lines which resembles his paternal granddad’s. It’s amazing how a child can take on not just their parents’ but also their other relatives’ looks. Then I move down to his eyes. When open, he has his dad’s eyes but when he has them closed, I can’t help noticing how those closed eyes resembles those of my sister, the sister I lost eighteen years ago. Like I said, a baby can look like the whole lot of family members one has got.
Coming to the nose, there is no denying he has my nose. How my cousin hates the nose of our family! I mean all in my dad’s family, if we don’t have anything in common, well! We’ve our noses to prove that we are of same lineage. Whenever, we’ve family gathering, we always compare whose nose is the ugliest? That’s some fun activity, ain’t it?
The lips, oh my! How I feel like kissing those tiny pink thing but I know we shouldn’t be kissing an infant’s lips. Don’t want to pass on any germs! But there is a joy in simply looking at it. Had he been born a girl I would have wanted to call him something related to that pink lips.
Softly I take off his mittens and slide my finger in his clenched fist. My finger seems like Gulliver sleeping gigantic in the land of the Lilliput. His grip tightens around my gigantic finger. I’ve heard somewhere that a child can even kill a snake with that grip. I can’t vouch for that with any proven data, just a hear-say through the grapevine.
Before I can linger with that look, he wriggles and goes pink in the face. I know he needs a nappy change. Nappy changing of an infant can be like unpacking a gift situation with all those layers of blankets and clothes. I gently pull out his soiled diaper and leave his bottom open to air out. If one doesn’t know, airing out helps to prevent nappy rash. Before I’ve a chance to slide in the fresh diaper, oh! He wets the whole set of clothing and the wetness spreads like the cirrus clouds just seconds before the heavy downpour. Before I can do anything, even his shirts are wet. So then, I engage myself in changing the whole set of clothing.
While picking out fresh sets of clothing, I notice my untouched breakfast. My cousin comes in, “Ana, breakfast ma zala?” I smile and push the tray towards her,” chon chen om das gai lunch zalay!”