The mobile flashed. Sandhya glanced at the message. Sindhu was on the way over. Better wrap this up and get going.
She did a last spellcheck and formatting check. The document was good to go. She sent the final version out, and looked across the conference table at Kevin, her associate.
“There, I have sent the final draft. You guys need to ensure that the schedules are ready. Take 3 printouts tomorrow morning and we will be ready to sign by 11. ….. You want me to check the schedules again?”
“All ready ma’am. You have already seen them once. Not required”.
“Okay then. Let’s wrap this up and be ready in the morn”.
Kevin showed a thumbs up, closed his laptop and walked out with the other associate. Aditi.
Sandhya stretched back on her chair and looked out of the bay windows at the twinkling lights of the city. She felt bone tired, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins was still high. A project successfully completed within the deadline. When she had started out as a junior associate, her senior had pointed out at the tube light. “See this? This is your sun and moon. All that matters is billable hours. The more you pound that laptop, the bigger is your bonus”.
How true that turned out to be.
The door to the conference room opened and Sindhu walked in. “Hey, ready for dinner?”
“Can we get some takeout? Feeling tired”, Sandhya replied. Sindhu shrugged her shoulders and pushed back her perfect blow-dried hair with manicured fingers. Sandhya fingered her own rough strands ruefully.
“What’s this now?”, Sindhu asked.
“Got a big signing tomorrow. We finally closed the documents after 2 months of intense negotiations. Sometimes I am really so tired of all this”.
“Well”, Sindhu smirked. “You brought this all on yourself. You had a nice husband, a nice life at Singapore. Nobody gets a second chance. That too at 45 years. You did. Instead of appreciating and being grateful for your good luck, you left everything and came here to this. Now, you have no business cribbing. Just suffer in silence. You made the choice”.
Sandhya felt the familiar irritation sweeping though her. “You don’t understand Sindhu. Everything is not as rosy as it looks”.
“What’s not to understand? You made the choice of getting married. You made the choice to leave your job and move to Singapore. Now, why are you grumbling?”
“If a choice turns out to be bad, do we have to stick to it just because we made it?” Sandhya asked quietly.
Sindhu swished her hair in contempt. “Girish is a nice guy. You were raving platitudes about him before getting married. Girish is this and Girish is that. And now you are complaining. Your first marriage collapsed, I can understand. Now despite getting a nice guy, you have problems”.
“You don’t understand Sindhu. A marriage needs to be equal”.
“What equal? There will be issues now and then. You have to adjust as a woman. That’s all. Look at me and Sudhir. We are 25 years old this year. Are we not adjusting? First time around, I can understand. That guy was a creep. But failing at a second shot at marriage? It’s all on you. Girish took you to Singapore. Gave such a good life. And you came here walking out, instead of being grateful. So don’t complain”
“Who’s complaining? You don’t understand. I left my job, my home which I had built so lovingly. my family, my familiar environment. And jumped into a totally new life. What did he sacrifice? He merely got a much awaited overseas posting and expected me to tag along”.
“So, what do you expect him to do? Refuse the posting, leave his job, and sit here with you, just because you were working here?”
“We were earning the same amount. In fact, I was holding a higher position in terms of hierarchy. Why did I have to resign so that he can work abroad? Would he have done that for me?”
“He’s a man!”, Sindhu’s voice screeched high. “He has to work. His job is more important. You should have adjusted”.
“Unbelievable”, Sandhya shook her head. “Leave my job, my security,y because I am a woman and he is a man.”
“Every month, I had to ask him for money to run the house and he would give me 500-600 dollars and I would hesitate to ask more. He would go for his official overseas trips, his tours, his office parties, drinks with his colleagues. Look forward to them in fact, whereas I would have to just sit at home and wait for him to come back, and eagerly await the weekends when he would be free and we could go out for dinner. Every month, every year, he would tell me about his salary, his bonuses. And he would safely cart it all away in his accounts to save for his son. You don’t understand Sindhu. This was a second marriage for both of us. I did not begrudge his savings for his son, but I did begrudge the fact that I had lost the opportunity to do the same for my child. You do not understand this feeling, Sindhu. You might find it stupid. But I do not. I was jobless, and I was dipping into my savings for all my personal expenses, and he was not bothered. He was becoming richer and I was becoming poorer. You do not understand, Sindhu”.
“What a ridiculous argument. You could have just asked him for money whenever you wanted”, Sindhu scoffed.
“More money? You mean his money? Everything was his, nothing was mine. And I am supposed to be grateful because I was living abroad? Because the country is clean? Because I was cooking and washing and cleaning? The chores I hand over to someone else here without a second thought? You don’t understand”.
“There is no limit to your stupid arguments. A married couple owns everything jointly”.
“This. Sindhu, this thought. Hold it. Arguments, oh we had a lot of arguments. But however angry I was, I respected him, listened to him, let him have the last word. Because I, as a woman, was conditioned to do so. And in the last argument, where I was just listening to him submissively, he shouted, ‘if you don’t like it here, then go back. Leave the house. What’s stopping you? Just get out!’
“And just like that, with a sudden shock I realized. The house was his alone because he thinks so. The money he gives me for spending is his alone, because he says so. I have nothing. I am nothing. Because whatever society may say, hell, whatever the LAW may say, there is no marital house. It is his house which I have to leave because I don’t like something, and because he tells me so. There is no OUR house. HIS house. HIS money”.
“I work hard here. I am tired. I feel very irritated sometimes. But you know what Sindhu? This is MY irritating job, out of which I earn MY money and run MY home and spend the way I want. Nobody can tell me to leave the house if I don’t like something. Because it is MY house. I am living MY life without waiting for somebody to help me do it”, Sandhya started gathering her papers with trembling hands.
After a while, she continued, “Today is March 8th. It may have become a big deal in these times. But now I live every day as my own day, the way I want to. You will not understand Sindhu”.
Sujatha Rangachari
YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND
