If you've been married for more than 3 weeks, you know the answer to this question!
Personally, I have nothing against the laptop. I do think it's a handy, neat piece of invention; Only I don't approve of the role it plays in my (and many others') marital life. I look at my husband and he looks into its screen, whenever we are having a conversation - I found this disturbing, initially. As days and months went by, with no possibility of any favorable change happenning, I slowly made peace with this ; Like how one frets in the beginning but then learns to live with slowly emerging grey hair. I still get quite irritated with the timed groans like ummmm, uhhh, oooo which make my husband seem less human and more of a robot programmed to carry on a chat. What usually qualify as abrupt 'brakes' to the conversation, followed by angry silence and/or storming out of the place - are the sudden emergence of the head from the lap-top with some suprised, but totally unrelated reaction or question ;
Case in point : I was animatedly describing to my husband my interaction with another woman in the parking lot of a mall,a few hours before. Like I said before, from his side he was interjecting with some ummm and uhhh! At one point I was telling him, " I asked her - Do you mind?", which caused the spouse to suddenly look up at me and say, " No, I have no problem. As long as you take Shree( our toddler) with you to the mall. While you're there also look for this charger ( blah blah) at the Apple store... I have stuff to do, so I'll be busy until you guys come back".
I was so irate, I could have grabbed that laptop and flung it down from the balcony. I just left the scene and came upstairs to immerse myself in something, anything - less aggravating. Which made me think of attentiveness, love, devotion and dedication to spouse etc etc. Somehow my mind wandered to mythology - Rama and Sita.
Suddenly I had a flash - what would it have been like if Rama had a laptop when they were in the forest, and if Rama was anything like my husband .... Picture this....
Sita : My Lord, Rama, come here, look, there's a beautiful little deer by the brook
Rama ( sitting with his laptop) : uhhhhh
Sita: Rama, Rama, I want that deer, please!
Rama : Yeah yeah, you are my 'dear' Sita, don't I call you 'dear', c'mon!
Sita : Rama, I said I want that little deer outside, with the shimmering spots!!!
Rama : Hey, I am just looking at your credit card statement, you've already spent too much this month, you've gone way overboard, now you want something else?
Sita : No Rama, this deer, I want you to bring it for me
Rama : Sita, don't forget I am working from home today, I can't be running errands for you, I have a lot of things to get done. And by the way, we can't have the overhead of a deer right now. You're always coming up with some crazy stuff. Were you not supposed to get the flight tickets booked by yesterday, what happened to that ? And have you emailed XYZ ? By the way, I need the white clothes washed by today....
Of priorities and scheduling
I read this in the signature line of someone's email
'There are 24 hours in a day, if you think this is insufficient for you to do all your tasks, you should consider working at night!' I laughed hard when I first read this. In a silly sort of way I found it funny.
I know there are many people out there who're much busier than me, have many more responsibilities to juggle, have less help and more trying life situations. But why does everyday life as a working mom of a toddler, trying hard to cook one healthy hot meal for her family per day, keeping the clutter at home to a sane level, coaxing and cajoling the little one to eat 3-4 spoonfuls per meal and managing a host of other sundries seem like a feat? Throw into this mix, weightloss efforts - read cracked wheat for me, white rice for husband and daughter ; brisk 45 min walk for me, splashing in the pool, bonding for them ; pastries for them while watching TV as I try to appear stoical munching on a handful of unsalted almonds.
All in a day's work is archaic! Like the quote says, working at night is the only way to get a grasp of timelines. Why else am I sitting here blogging at 11:00 in the night?
'There are 24 hours in a day, if you think this is insufficient for you to do all your tasks, you should consider working at night!' I laughed hard when I first read this. In a silly sort of way I found it funny.
I know there are many people out there who're much busier than me, have many more responsibilities to juggle, have less help and more trying life situations. But why does everyday life as a working mom of a toddler, trying hard to cook one healthy hot meal for her family per day, keeping the clutter at home to a sane level, coaxing and cajoling the little one to eat 3-4 spoonfuls per meal and managing a host of other sundries seem like a feat? Throw into this mix, weightloss efforts - read cracked wheat for me, white rice for husband and daughter ; brisk 45 min walk for me, splashing in the pool, bonding for them ; pastries for them while watching TV as I try to appear stoical munching on a handful of unsalted almonds.
All in a day's work is archaic! Like the quote says, working at night is the only way to get a grasp of timelines. Why else am I sitting here blogging at 11:00 in the night?
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