Kishore Singh: Double drudgery

PEOPLE LIKE US

A mad, bad week at work and renovations at home led to such exhaustion that on Tuesday I decided to go AWOL. I switched off the mobile, cutting off my link with the working world, and told the maid that I was not at home for those who bothered to call home. With a pot of tea and toast for company, I retreated to the bedroom to seek refuge.

I needn't have bothered because the front door bell rang every other minute as the labour came and went about their work, everyone from plumbers and masons to electrical engineers and upholsterers, ensuring I didn't get to catch a wink.

There was no way I could close the door (it had just been painted) or draw the drapes (sent to the dry-cleaners), so I pouted instead as drills and saws buzzed noisily.

When the phone began to ring, I made motions to the maid to indicate that she was to say I wasn't at home, or was at work, or in a meeting. "He's at home on work in a meeting," she said.

"He's supposed to meet me for lunch today," complained a friend from Germany who was in town for a short period, to my wife. "Tell him to wake up," an acquaintance called to say. And for hours, practitioners of the trade known as public relations left messages with the poor maid about important press conferences I was missing "" and did she know who'd been deputed to attend?

"Seeing that you're at home," said the contractor who's team was employed to work for us, "why don't you go select the tiles for the bathroom?" "Just get a basic white," I tried to fob him off, but my wife said, "I'd like you to go to the bank to cash this cheque, and pick up some threads to match the fabric for the upholsterer on the way back, and since you're going to be out anyway, you might as well pick up the tiles."

Staggering home after a couple of hours more exhausted than before, I was bent on getting some rest, even if it meant pasting newspaper sheets across the windows. But I hadn't reckoned on my wife, who said: "You're so lucky, you can take off whenever you like, but a housewife's work is never done."

"You're only pretending to be a housewife," I said, "but you do no housework." "That's because I have so much work outside, I'm tired at the end of it," she said, "which is why I thought you might like to drive me around town for my meetings today."

My protests went unheeded, and I found myself escorting her from one part of the city to another, though thankfully she didn't insist on my accompanying her for her meetings, so I was able to snooze in the driver's seat "" though it was galling to be told by one chowkidaar to bring the car around, "Madam is waiting in the porch".

It was evening by the time we got home, to find the maid in a surly temper because the labourers hadn't let her rest, or catch her afternoon movie on TV. "Oh dear," said my wife, "she'll cook terribly in that mood, but fortunately I have some pork chops lying in the freezer that you enjoy cooking so much, and the children love."

It would have been more tiring to protest, so I made dinner, and fed the kids and my wife (and not the maid, but only because she doesn't eat pork and was, therefore, surlier than before) and lurched into bed.

The next morning, my wife said: "You're so lucky, you'll go off to work, while I'll have to manage everything else all on my own."