My husband’s woman friend

He waxed eloquent about her efficiencies. His comments did little to arrest my sultry senses despite the cacophony at the wedding venue. If my disdain did little to stop her monologue, the wedding protocol failed as much.

Yes, ‘educated’, too.

She ensured we visited her every week, which I obliged as I had no other acquaintance in the new city. And she quickly put me at ease with her nineteen-to-the-dozen talks. From where to shop the best linen tops to which supermarket sold tomatoes at a cheaper rate, she knew it all.

Thanks to her, I cultivated a tolerance for numbers, a task even my best Math teacher failed to achieve.

Every weekend morning, as an alarm clock crying, would come her call. ‘You guys still sleeping?

You may please look for us in this picture

A month later, she landed home with a couple of guys and had the husband enrolled with the local cricket team, which played only over the weekend. “Exercise is the last thing on your mind, when you are newly-wed…” she reprimanded.
When I started job-hunting, she whole-heartedly took over the project. Decided which interviews I would attend and what salary I should negotiate on. “You’ve got media experience, then why the hell should you take up any job. Wait for a media opening,” she counselled.

I began admiring her. A super woman, indeed!

On week days, she took a half-an-hour break after she returned from work at 5.30pm. Kids’ study-time, which she was hands-on, was from 6pm-8pm. By 9.15pm dinner was served for the family. Washing clothes was also done after the kids packed their school bags for the following day.

I turned to her for any small hiccups I faced. I trusted her completely. She became my role-model!

I secretly wished I could be a woman like her.

After a few minutes of baby talk, she said, “I pray that you have a baby boy.”

At my puzzled stare, she took my hands in hers and said softly, “If the first child is a boy, then there’s no tension, you see. The second can be any.”