A toast to nari shakti

Tejinder Singh Bedi

MOST of us worship Maa Durga or Maa Sheranwaali or Her other incarnations, and also respect and hold in dignity our mothers, daughters, sisters and our Sita-swarup spouses as nari shakti. 

Unlike me, my wife is a religious person, following her nit-nem (daily routine of morning and evening prayers). Amid all this, what perplexes me is the hawk-like watch on my movements around her. In the middle of the recitation or reading of the daily jaap, she suddenly stops to caution me that the napkin I moved from the washroom next to where she is sitting should be put back in its place, or my wet towel should be hung outside immediately, or the shirt I took off last evening be put inside the almirah...so on and so forth. 

There are innumerable other alerts-cum-instructions during the day, ranging from which household item, vegetables or kiryana items need to be procured, or when I come back with a bag of these items, to be able to suddenly point out from a distance — thanks to the transparent plastic bags still being used — what was never told to be brought. I marvel at her multi-tasking abilities to please God and pull up her husband at the same time. Earlier it was such perceived non-compliance, and lately, the kinder ones — now that we are both ageing fast — if I have taken my morning blood pressure tablet and multi-vitamins or other medicines. The instructions will not stop even if she sees me completely lost in typing scripts or reading educational — some distracting, too — messages on social media. WhatsApp and Facebook are her worst enemies today. 

But despite it all, we have spent four decades together under one roof, and no matter how irritating the other gets, it is next to impossible for both to find a new model or replacement! 

While the enmity housewives — who have never had a chance to work in a corporate or a formally organised structure — harbour for Facebook and WhatsApp is a relatively new phenomenon, it seems no different than it has been with the corporate work hours and commitments I put in for 45 years like a workaholic in full-time and part-time jobs that I variously took up ever since I was 20 years old. 

 All the same, as one says, over a period of time, pain can become a medicine — dard se dawa tak ka safar.  Her dua (prayers) are, meanwhile, also going strong. But it does prove that the multi-tasking abilities of our women are definitely much better, or stronger, than ours — committed husbands.