Shree's Scribbles

My parents had had an arranged marriage and were yet to work out a convenient post-marriage life. Baba could not move to Delhi as his business was just settling in and the prospects looked positive. In due time they decided that Ma would move to Kolkata but that did not happen till I was five. We went to Kolkata for the summer vacations and Baba came to Delhi for puja holidays. Perhaps this arrangement left an impact in my mind which led me to relocate to Chennai -- where my husband lives -- immediately after marraige.

I quit my job and took up another with which though I am not very happy, but it allows me to have a job as well as be with my husband. I do not really blame my mother for not moving immediately. She did not have the means to, as Baba's business could well do with the extra income her work brought in in the initial years. Moreover both my parents did not have their parents or a support system like me and my husband have, one which we can fall back on in case of a financial emergency.

Ma finally gave up a job she enjoyed and the place she was so comfortable in, when I turned five, when Baba's business could afford it, and took up a lecturer's job in Calcutta University, which I know she never really enjoyed though she never ever mentioned it or was compensated like her previous job but from where she retired at the age of sixty as principal of the college. I have seen numerous long distance marriages and the children in-between other than my own childhood and they are not very happy ones.

Often in life one has to choose between two "happinessess" and that is what I did. I chose togetherness, love and a prospective happy married life to happiness in the job. Sometimes when I feel unhappy with my job I just remind my-self that you lose some to gain some and what I have gained is the love and company of my husband who happens to be cooking dinner as I write this as he wanted to cook for us, today being the eve of my birthday.