My fair lady-A working woman

My fair lady

It was a few months back when Indispire was ablaze with the topic “Do you want to write a book?” I had just started blogging then and this topic had attracted my fancies easily. Because deep down in my heart I always wanted to write a book and reach out to millions of readers. However I never knew what I wanted to write about. So while blogging for Indispire I really had to brainstorm to know myself. Eventually I came across myself. My image on the mirror actually astonished me, I never took myself so seriously before.

Hardships were not quite a part of my life. Even after marriage my husband Avishek and I did not stay together for our professional commitments. So I never quite understood the life of a working married girl. With loads of efforts we ultimately managed jobs in Mumbai and moved together under the same roof. Then we bought our own apartment, which increased financial responsibility on both our shoulders. My new house is reasonably far from my office and travelling in Mumbai is quite a task.

We have a cook, a domestic help yet managing household chores along with office was a challenge. It took me some time to acclimatize my brain to dealing with thoughts like how to complete project in time and what to ask the cook to prepare today simultaneously. Infact for the first time I started living some of the words my mother always said. She said girls need no cooking and household chores’ classes, they are tailor made to learn these with time. Being the feminist I am, my thoughts always clashed with mom’s experience. I kept to my theories of men-women equality and so on.

But time proved her to be correct, at least to a large extent. Household chores, dealing with maids and maintaining grocery stocks to name a few eventually dawned on my shoulders without me even perceiving it. I had to be home in time to let my maids work. While my husband had the privilege of staying late at office for meetings and so on.

I am not complaining, infact I have an extremely cooperative husband and my situation is much more desirable than many other working wives/mothers I come across regularly. But I just want to collect your view on this…readers please comment.

“Is it natural for a working women to be solely or largely responsible for household chores, or the work should be equally shared?”

Your take please!!!! Your point of view is important to me because I desire to write a book (my first book) narrating the ethos and pathos of today’s urban wife. How she deals with her dual life and how her efforts at times are misconstrued!

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta