The Private Life of Mrs Sharma Read Free

school on the opposite side of the road. Still, I think that I knew at that time, just like I know now, that such foolishness is timewaste.

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    Sunday, 8 May 2011
    I don’t like Sundays. Actually, what I should say is that I don’t like Sundays any more, not since my husband left and went to Dubai. I wake up each Sunday morning and there is no job to go to, there is nowhere to go to at all. When my husband was here we would go to meet his parents in Ghaziabad for tea. From time to time we would go to watch a film at Shakuntalam. And as long as it was not raining or too cold, we always went to India Gate in the evening. It is not actually meeting people or watching films that I miss, and there are hardly any benefits to such things anyway, but at least there was always some plan. There was always some reason to get out of the house, and I would wear a nice sari, and from the cupboard I would take out smart shirts and pants for my husband and son, which I would press again and lay out neatly on the bed, and they would wear these clothes and then we would go out. Now my husband works in a foreign country, so there are no outings, and my in-laws live with me, so there is nobody to go and meet, noreason to dress up, and on most Sundays we just sit in the house, Bobby, my in-laws and I. It is true that this is the day when I get some time to do a little bit of stitching or darning, when I can re-arrange the cupboards or clean the fridge. Still, how long do such things take? I try my level best to convince Bobby to come with me for a walk to IIT or the Rose Garden, or to go to India Gate for ice cream or to one of the malls in Saket. Sometimes he does agree to accompany me, but I know that he would prefer to sit in front of the computer or watch some stupid cooking show on TV or lie around with his headphones on. It also seems that he likes this girl with green eyes at the bus stop and he does not know what to do, because Bobby is actually just a good, simple boy, and so sometimes he just lies on the divan with a long face doing nothing at all. But children are like this these days. At least my Bobby tries to make his mother happy from time to time.
    Still, I think that the main reason that I don’t like Sundays is because I can’t go to work. I enjoy work. I enjoy being busy, work-busy, which is totally different from being house-busy. When you are house-busy it is not only your body that gets tired, which is fine, but your mind also gets very tired. So, I work at a famous doctor’s clinic in Gurgaon, and it is a good job. Dr Raghubir Singh is a world-famous gynaecologist and obstetrician. He sees patients at his clinic in the mornings, and in the afternoons and evenings he does surgeries and his rounds at a big private hospital, which is centrally air-conditioned and has all the latest machines. Doctor Sahib has medical degrees from grand, grand institutions like AIIMS and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in England, degrees that areframed in fancy gold-painted wood and hung all over the walls of the clinic, and even though he is a male doctor, his waiting room looks like a bus station, filled with patients who have waited for weeks and weeks to get an appointment. And these patients are not the types of women you see on the Metro or in your local market. They, or their husbands, are all rich and have many contacts. They are ladies from big business families, or wives of politicians or Class One officers or multinational executives, or are themselves politicians or Class One officers or multinational executives. They are ladies who live in Gurgaon’s poshest apartment complexes, which have twenty-four-hour power and water, and swimming pools and gyms, or ladies from localities like Vasant Vihar or Golf Links, or ladies who live in one of those white bungalows near Connaught Place. I know this because I meet them daily. I am the person who keeps all their personal information in files. But I should say