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Breakfast’s on the table, your sandwich for lunch is wrapped and kept in your lunch bag. I’m dropping the kids to school, and I’ll pick them up them up in the evening as well. Bye and Take Care, Love, “Sun-dip”
The note was on the refrigerator door, stuck on it, like it has been for the last 2 years. Since the message never changed, and Sujata never took it off the door, there was not point of writing a new note every day. Every morning Sandeep would get up at 5:00, wake the kids up, get them ready, make breakfast and drop the kids to school on time. It’s been like this since Anisha joined the school. Before she was old enough to go to school, Sandeep used to drop and pick up Rohit at the bus stop, near the house. Then it wasn’t this hectic. But he felt, as the kids were growing up and he growing old, his energy was increasing day by day. And then he wasn’t old, he has not even entered his 40s yet.
Sujata’s day would start at 8:00, with the help of a mug full of dark filter coffee and newspaper; she would spend about couple of hours getting ready for her job. She was an IT consultant by profession, and even though she was married, a single woman by choice. It’s difficult to call her a single mother, because she couldn’t care less about the kids. It’s not that she did not care, but the fact that Sandeep was so good in taking their care, that she never had to interfere in their daily chores; school, homework, food and sleep. She was “called-in” only when she was needed. And that’s how everyone seemed to be enjoying the life.
Sujata loved her job; it made her travel around the world. She had already been to UK, Australia, South-East Asia and Latin America. And she practically “grew-up” in USA; spending almost 6 years completing her bachelors, and then eventually her Masters in Information Systems, and then working in US for another 4 years. The Chennai-born, round spectacled, tall and beautiful woman, wanted to get out of college as soon as she got in, may be because she always looked ahead, much ahead of the times. She did very well in college, getting good grades was as easy as getting a new boy friend for a beautiful woman. She never really had to work hard for anything except sticking to something. And thanks to her good grades and her network, she was the first student of her class to get a power-packed offer from an IT consulting firm. That was the time, during her job with Advance Data Systems that she met Sandeep, a business strategic consultant, and fell for him. He was everything that she wanted from a guy, handsome, compassionate, understanding and soft-spoken. It took them just a couple of months to hit off, and another year to commit for marriage.
Sandeep or Sun-dip as Sujata used to call him earlier, was born and brought up in Mumbai. It was only when he graduated from a good management school and excellent performance in his early job assignments that he eventually joined a start-up consulting firm. It was a big risk, which handsomely paid off. Within a few years Sandeep got a US assignment, and a big raise in responsibility, and a little less raise in pay. But he relished them both, may be the former little less than the latter. He was never a demanding guy; he was persuasive, soft-spoken yet firm. This helped him very much in professional as well as personal life. He loved his job; his career had flourished and reached to greater heights with the company.
Sujata was happy to settle with Sandeep in NY. But it was difficult for Sandeep to imagine growing old in USA; he always liked India, and didn’t want to live somewhere else. He was used to the hustle-bustle of Mumbai, the crowded places, the shops, the bargaining going on in shops which seem like arguments ready to turn into fights, the traffic. It was part of his life, which he didn’t want to leave. And this was obvious to Sujata from the very start of their relationship, when they started going out together. It was difficult for her to adjust to life in India after a decade in USA, She had in fact planned everything from her marriage, and how she is going to live with the family, bring her parents to US, raise kids, and live a peaceful life in a NY suburb. She was one of those confused Indians who just couldn’t think of returning to India, she hated the heat, the sweat and the stink which comes with it, the crowd, the most importantly the people. For her it was a matter of “moving-on” from a 2-BHK apartment in a crowded Indian Metro, to a serene bungalow, with a patio and garden, with no boundaries, with a swimming pool of their own. Everyone around her insisted that with their income this could be bought in India as well, but she was adamant on the fact that it’s the “traditional” Indian people she hated the most, who would never let her live peacefully, intruding in her life as they would do to any USA-returned. When her parents refused to move to US, she got a shock, a big one. During the same time Sandeep made clear to her that he wanted to marry her in the very rules of traditional Indian culture that she hated, he would not just say “I do” and take her hand for life. If she doesn’t like a particular place, then they may plan moving to some other city where the atmosphere is more “conducive” for people from alien nations to survive.
She had to make a decision, because she had starting to love Sandeep more that she ever loved anyone else, and it was getting more and more difficult for her to live without him, as if she had a choice. She was not sure why she would even consider about settling in India, but then she wasn’t sure of her Identity in U,S as well. As immigrants its difficult to be part of a culture which is very different to yours…
“The secret of patience is doing something else in the meanwhile”
