WOMAN OF LEISURE

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and....I believe in miracles.- Audrey Hepburn

As she walked in, all heads turned.  A well dressed, good looking, well groomed lady. Soon she was the centre of all attention as she continued to enthrall the company in her soft, lazy, drawl. Her husband, a quiet businessman, was a strict teetotaler but she enjoyed her drinks and smoke.  From the beginning I was feeling a little out of place since I hardly knew anybody there except our hosts. I looked around. I was reminded of Eliot’s:

“In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo”.

Partly out of politeness and partly out of boredom, I thought I should also try and get to know this charming lady around whom the whole gathering was swarming. So when I found her sitting quietly enjoying her wine, I mustered the courage to speak to her. After the usual perfunctory introduction from my side, I waited curiously to know what profession the lady was in. Must be from the advertising world or may be an entrepreneur ….more likely an interior decorator….my imagination was all stirred up. “I am a woman of leisure…” she drawled, “I do not believe in doing anything….” Having expected to hear a lot of interesting things, I was quite stumped!

This was some twenty years back when leisure was a word that did not appear in my daily routine. Each day passed in a whirlwind of activities- morning tea, breakfast, lunch box, kids, school, in-laws, cooking, chartered bus, office and again back to chartered bus, market, home, cooking, relatives, guests and, at last, some sleep. And here was this lady who called herself “A woman of leisure”. Who is this mythical character? I thought of looking it up in my spare time…

-A woman who does not have to work, especially because her husband earns a lot of money-(Macmillan Dictionary).

Oh! I should have been smarter when I chose a husband!

-A lady who is of independent means and so does not need employment; one who is free from duties and responsibilities.

Aah!! This was getting even more interesting- no boss to worry about, no in-laws to please, no explanations to give!!!

-An unemployed female or one who has retired from work.

Good, there was still hope-light at the end of the tunnel.

-Euphemestically-a prostitute.

No, no even she has to work for a living. A woman of pleasure too has to earn her leisure.

-It means a woman who does not have to work for a living either because she has a rich benefactor who gives her money or because she has inherited money.

More likely this was the case- an heiress! Do I have some long- lost Uncle who has amassed a fortune scouring the mines of Africa or drilling all the oil wells in Arabia? No, no such luck.

On one of my regular visits to my hometown Kolkata, I recall overhearing an extremely loud mother explaining to a small gathering of relatives that her daughter had managed to be selected in every interview she had appeared but she never took up a job. Hey, what is all this talk about experience, curriculum-vitae? In our time the CAT or MAT was not so much in vogue, but we did have our Civils and Probationary Officers’ exams to worry about. The mother continued her oratory, “She preferred her independence and her leisure rather than spend it in servitude.” Yes, we were the fools who thought taking up a job and standing on your own feet were signs of independence!  We should have instead utilized our time in hunting for richer husbands.

Anyway the tag of a ‘woman of leisure’ remained elusive for the next two decades as I continued in the role of a Public Sector executive with a 10 to 6 job where nothing interesting ever happened other than the fact that your bosses kept getting transferred, where you were a fool if you were regular or punctual and an even bigger fool if you took your job seriously and actually worked. Every task was ‘Important’ as long as you thought it to be. Pray do not take me seriously-just joking.

When, at last, I quit, imagining that the rest of my days would be spent sitting on a couch watching television or talking endlessly on the telephone with my feet neatly tucked in, I did not foresee the future. Actually, the image came from a colleague once saying, in a fit of frustration, that when she stopped working she would spend the whole day in a dressing gown like her mother- in- law watching television, applying mehendi and talking endlessly on the phone with her ‘kitty’ friends. We had all laughed at her but the image remained in some corner of my mind. Wishful thinking!! I had imagined that from now on I would also be a member of the enigmatic ‘women of leisure’ club.

As they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride them. By a twist of fate, leisure still remains as elusive to me as it was twenty years ago. I am more bound than I ever was. In fact, staying at home is quite a painful process. The whole world piles on you all that are ‘un-do-able’ by them since you are ‘not doing anything’. At least in office, among the few luxuries of a PSU job, tea and water would be served to you. The canteen boy always seemed to know when you needed a cup of strong coffee or when a bad throat called for a cup of hot tea with ginger and lime. The lady peon always reminded you “ Madam, kal se pani ka bottle nahi bharoongi, aap bilkul pani nahi pitey hain”. Now you want water or tea, help yourself; otherwise remain thirsty.

Very soon there is a reversal of roles at home. The lady of the house becomes the ‘domestic help’ while the ‘help’ now has her ‘9 to 5 jobs’ to handle and soon she is explaining to you the virtues of time management. She talks about her weekly and monthly offs while you do not even earn a leave!

Ever since I quit, I truly miss the canteen boy in my last office. By now, my readers must be thinking that my job entailed only gastronomic skills! How sweetly the lad would bring the tray and even gently remind me to eat the lunch before it got cold. While posted in Delhi, all the ladies in the office had to bear one cheeky fellow from the canteen who had a habit of drumming into everyone’s ears, “Aisi garam garam mathri toh aapki saas ne bhi kabhi nahi khilayi hogi” or “Aisi adrak wali chai toh aapki nani saas ke haath se bhi nahi pi hogi.” But, no matter what he said, his mathris were the best I have had so far! Yes, now lunchtime has certainly lost its flavour!

When I look back now, I can see things from a different perspective. Despite the mad rush, the feeling of ‘time’s winged chariot hurrying near’, the last minute telephone ring that can simply ruin a day, the never-ending chores, the life of a working woman is after all not too bad. It may not have tranquility of a life of leisure, the gentle rise and fall of a laid back life, but it has its own rhythm. A rhythm that has its cycle of pain and sacrifice just as it has its counter-cycle of pleasure and fulfillment. 

Recently, I visited my daughter, doing her residency as a part of her post graduate specialization programme. She lives with two other young girls-both resident doctors. If all these years, I thought I had studied, worked and served so hard, all  my labour was miniscule in comparison to the difficult  life each of these young doctors lead . They work anywhere between eighteen to thirty hours at a stretch, with hardly any time to eat or sleep. Leisure is something they are unfamiliar with. Yes, they do unwind and enjoy but that too for a very short time after having worked for, may be, anywhere between 100 to 130 hours a week. Even those snatched moments of relaxation come at a cost –the price paid being sleep and rest. No women of leisure are these young doctors!

‘The woman of leisure’ tag seems to have eluded both mother and daughter and their grandmothers and great-grandmothers before them. But, who knows, what the future holds? Anyway till then, cheers to all the ‘Women of Leisure’- you have at least lulled us into sweet dreams! May be, we will have our turn at another place, another time.

DS