Sorry I was busy.

Starting my day at 5.30 am energetically, followed by waking up my daughter and leaving house at exact 7.30 am with packed tiffin, breakfast, fruits nuts hanging in tupperwares all around me.

From there meeting schedulers, work commitments, expiring reminders, kathak class, weekend zumbas, physiotherapy, spiritual discourses, latest addiction to statistics and my life was running at high pace with high hopes and disappointments which went altogether.

This saturday after my zumba class, i got applauded for possessing incomparable energy and then i felt creeping headache and lethargy by afternoon. Sunday felt feverish.. The first worry was of important commitments for Monday which i did not want to miss.

Monday came, i took a day's leave from office reluctantly, promised some delay in my work. Tuesday i was diagnosed with malaria and i was off.

There were phases i went through during this 1 month when i was absent from everyone life who was associated to me.

Malaria did not cure, it came along with an accomplice which got revealed after 12 days of fever, that's Typhoid. I encountered worst fever cycles, bursts of stomach cramps, sleepless shivering under blankets, painful channeling and i surrendered myself slowly to this slowdown of life that one night.

Initially first few days, i grumbled for missing a conference, few work opportunities. Slowly i chartered a list of people i had grudges against for not showing enough sympathy as per my expectations. All this went away that night when i watched that wall clock and its lethargically moving hands whole night.

My 103.8F fever was not coming down and hospital was adamant on not giving any more paracetamol. They experimented with ice bath, ice bed, ice pillow, ice armpit block all that to ensure i suffer from cold and cough additionally that night.

I realized, emptiness of everything i had till date. Those freezing restless feet, with fever rising on head, everything else seemed worthless than those soft hands of someone rubbing my feet at midnight so that i could breath normally for few moments.

I felt its so many days i am absent from my work, my books, my health sessions, my classes and my family. It used to give me tonnes of stress to miss any of these even for a day. I am ABSENT and freely lying in that bed.
I was ABSENT and everything was still fine. Nothing broke, Nothing waited, Nothing felt me as important as i felt i was for all these.

My team at work found alternates, my friends felt my absence was nothing noticeable, my parents/siblings had heard enough busy stories from me that they felt it usual, my daughter accommodated with love others gave and things adjusted to my absence much sooner than i could imagine.

Did i feel sad, bad ? Actually i felt free. I felt good!!

It was like i forgave everyone from my grudges list, it felt worthless to shelter it anymore.
I loved people who were there for me helping me to heal.

In those lighter moments i enjoyed a reminders free life. A reckless, directionless, hopeless, a bit of life full of just life.
I watched TV without caring for endless hours getting wasted in slothful activities.

I realized, i am not a indispensable piece in life's zigsaw puzzle. It all will run, will go smooth and soon the gap will be filled....

Things don't need me to be worried and active to take care of them all the time. Its okay if i delay a mail's response for some time, it all went smooth without me for 30 days. Its okay if i take rest.

I realized though my work helps me financially, but that soft touch is precious when needed in life. That love and care which is there in loved ones is most valuable and should be valued in fine days too.

I wanted to call a few lost friends, wish some of them a happy birthday for past years i missed, i replied to a few wtsapp pending messages after long and i wished a few to get well soon.

I felt playing throw and catch with my daughter again was nothing less than a blessing, i thanked with tears for digesting my first bite of parantha after starving for days, i felt sleeping with family, getting a painless full stomach sleep was a boon.

I realized, life has expanse beyond than my own made boundaries.

i can stay light and just love and live.

"Man of the house"

Definition in dictionary says "the most important male member of a family, who is responsible for doing things such as paying bills, making important decisions etc"

Who is man of the house? When there are working woman earning well hand in hand who is Man of the house? Why when a woman sharing financial burden to run a house, still society perceives woman as an associated financial entity working for fun?

Isn't it sad to know this is the way a woman is perceived after all this hard work.

I got hold of diary of a working woman, lets see glimpses from a routine day's scribbled notes of hers...

As compared to my male peers, Its much harder, more alert, more disciplined, healthily, on schedulers and reminders,
i live my day with multi-fold facets of duties to handle, just to perform at par in my workplace ?

I have educated, smart, new generation modern men all around me today. I am surrounded by men, who have been with working women, in all fields from aviation to construction sites.

But i still have men who eats like me but waits for someone to cook. I still have men out of them who when finds a messy house, looks at someone with disappointment.
I still have men who take their career decisions freely which I follow and it's well accepted in society without a hitch.
I still have men who when take care of their own child in my absence, expect a "big thank" in return.
I still have men who don't know where things are kept in their "own" homes.
I still breath in a society where creches are only women employee's "first demand and biggest relief", despite of the fact that each of those
children have a working father too.

It's not an easy world for me as a working woman and when i juggle somehow among all these and then if i perform well in my workplace, i am not graded well because same men are there too somewhere.

I am not an individual instead i am an associated entity to a man.

Its difficult to understand not only by society even by my family and parents, WHY do "I" require that coveted position or remuneration when i am just an additional source of income to house.

And I am not here to blame only men for this lopsided structure of society.

If this men world alone had to be rewired.. It would have been lot easier, its roots are deeper..
because this system is running on shoulders of women like me itself in different roles..

I will share a short story here to highlight my thought..

Nikhil one of my relative stays in guwhati in a joint family. He is most adorable son, a good husband and father of 3 kids.
He has revered & pampered his mother till last days and considered wife and kids as his secondary responsibility.
One day his eldest daughter got married and soon she was expecting a kid. You what she earnestly prayed to god..??
She diligently prayed day and night " to have a son who is just like her father ......"

Thats is opportunistic duality in our womanhood. Lets try to avoid it in relationships at home and at workplace.

lets be good to us and also to ones like us.
lets not just wish us women's day instead be justified to us in all forms around us.
lets stop being judgemental to ones not like us.
"lets teach and train our sons and brothers first before telling it to our husbands.
lets wear equality robe in all roles..
lets not be situationally and rationally equal.
lets love our kind as a whole and teach others same.

A very happy women's day.