THE DIARY OF A HOUSEWIFE

“He writes answers in his own words”, our son’s teacher commented. Bursting with pride I replied, “That’s great isn’t it?” Taken aback, the teacher just nodded her head, speechless, unable to comment. As a student I was never a big fan of the rote learning method… which child is? A product of Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central Schools), I never had a strong foundation in most subjects and my understanding of the most basic concepts was always very shaky. Wasting all those evenings mugging up lessons was not my way of spending time productively; and the sad part is that I suffered. My Mathematics skills never came up to the desired levels and happy to be given a choice between Maths and Home science, I chose the latter in the XI, against all advice. However, the only way I cleared my exams, and yes sometimes with flying colours, was to pay attention to what the teacher said in the class and to try and understand concepts on my own. I had a knack of making sense of things in my own part...

If there is one thing all we women, the ones who work out of their homes, from their homes or for their homes, can all concur without any dissension - not many of those darlings around though - on, is the fact that “diamonds are not our best friends” it is the…didis, auntys, ammas, bais, call them what you may, who are without a doubt in my mind, our unrivalled friends, our anmol ratans . Their contribution to our lives goes unnoticed by most of us though in our hearts we know how much they mean to us. Life without these support systems can never be the same. They give so much of themselves to our families, our homes, treating us like their own families, sometimes at the cost of their own family, that they become a part of our daily lives without us realising it. For some they are just servants who are hired to do menial tasks at home, tasks which are too demeaning and degrading to even think about doing by themselves; for some they are helpers who are employed to share their daily...