How it all began…

It was an ordinary day. She got up made breakfast and the five course lunch that her husband would carry to his office. Was too exhausted to move by the time he came back from pumping iron but like any other day she obliged him by allowing him to pump his seeds into her. This he said was necessary for his keeping fit and vital so she acquiesced.

Then the race to office and he was kind enough to drop her close to her office which he usually didn’t since that meant he drive a kilometer extra to reach his which came before hers. Must have lifted more weight than usual or someone must have admired his six pack at the gym she calculated mentally. Such charity from him after all was rare.

A mundane day at office and then an acquaintance called to ask why she had not forwarded her CV to her husband since she had already told him about her and he was waiting to hear from her. Truth be told she had forgotten all about her chat with the lady about a job change the other day and she promised to do so now.

Walked back to her cubicle with her Boss giving her a disapproving look though she had walked out for barely two minutes unlike the guys who would take ten minute smoking breaks every hour or so. But then this too was ordinary.

She made a note of the email address the lady had given and sometime later when the Boss went out with the new girl who had joined for a meeting she quickly forwarded her CV with a small note asking for the gentleman’s time and attention.

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The next few days went by like any other with her submitting to her husband’s five times a day need for her body, his need to be served hand and foot with the choicest meals and a house kept spic and span. After all he was a senior person in his organization and had a reputation to live up to.

When she had long forgotten the mail she had sent asking for help with a job the answer suddenly came. Or perhaps it had come earlier but she didn’t get a chance to open her personal email too often in the office. So she saw the mail, it spoke in a friendly though slightly patronizing tone. It asked her what she had been doing all this while and why had she not approached better agencies till now. Questions she didn’t have answers to, or atleast not the kind of answers you could give a stranger so she thanked him for his help and said that she would do as he suggested.

The questions however were disturbing enough and rankled under the blanket of ‘everything goes’ that she had put over her own aspirations and dreams. She sat down and gave her CV a long hard look and promised herself that she would look beyond the immediate and get a job away from the madness and iron hand of her brother-in-law.

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Unexpectedly her dream came true though not in a manner that she had dreamt of. The two brothers fought again over their respective responsibilities for their parents and in the heated exchange she lost her job. Not that she was unduly anxious she assumed her husband with his multiple source of incomes would not find it difficult to feed her for a month or so till she found herself a situation again.

The first two days her normally emotionless husband was quite considerate, heaping blames on his heartless brother and reminding her of the many un-thanked duties she had performed for the company which were beyond those of her designated role.

By the third day however his patience ran out he wanted to know if she would be without a job forever. He wanted to know if she would join his organization. Should he set her up in business she could front it while he diverted his company's work to her.

She thought through and then decided against it. It would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. She had had bitter fights at home because of her handling her husband’s company’s account now if she worked with him as a subordinate she wondered what insults would be heaped on her in public for the smallest error.

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It was eleven days since she had lost her job his taunts were now open and barb like. To anyone who cared to listen he would say that he was the sole bread earner in the family and in these times it was so difficult to run a household all alone. The listeners heard him out politely wondering how difficult could it be for someone ion his position with no responsibilities except a wife.

She had looked everywhere and also spoken to the coordinators whose numbers the gentleman had forwarded her. One of them called up to say there was a vacancy in an agency close to her home and would she be interested, she jumped at the idea. Went for the interview with her heart in her mouth and the moment she walked in she found the place so cheerful she felt she belonged right there.

The interview went well, she was asked to join immediately. She called her husband to give the news, her new salary a good hike from the peanuts she received earlier left him stunned. It was a bitter reality that his wife’s salary was now better than his. The fact was that his multiple channels of earning still was way higher than hers but it was still a bitter pill to swallow.

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Her first day at work found her happily slipping into the routine of advertising life. Midmorning the coordinator called to ask if all was fine with her, she thanked her wholeheartedly and told her she was sure she would have a happy time here. Once the call ended she remembered the gentleman who had forwarded the contact and she thought of mailing him a thank you note. Somehow, must be because destiny willed it, she thought an email too impersonal and decided to call instead.

She called and he answered she gave the happy news of her joining an organization that looked nice and he congratulated her on the same. Then they spoke about this and that and the chat stretched on. She was pulled into his world through the voice that seemed to ooze honey and the feeling that after a long while someone actually cared to hear what she thought instead of just saying something and moving on. It was such a high to be just paid attention. How could she resist?