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
