The Private Life of Mrs Sharma Read Free Page B

absolutely clean, that not one stain or one dot of dust should be seen, because Doctor Sahib is very, very particular about that, and that everything from the floor to the ceiling should shine. Every Thursday I even make one of the servants use sellotape to pull off any fallen hairs on the carpet in the waiting room. It is alsomy duty to make sure that the office boys and lab assistants are doing their jobs properly. So, even if my designation is receptionist and even if some of the work that I do could be called secretarial, I am actually more like the office manager.
    I can talk in English quite nicely. I went to an English-medium school, my father was very particular that I attend an English-medium school, and for four years I even studied at a convent that was run by proper Irish nuns, not those Malayali sisters from Kerala. My husband taught me Word and Excel, and I learnt a little bit of PowerPoint on my own, so I am also quite proficient with computers, and I am excited because last month Doctor Sahib said that he is going to buy a computer that will only be for me to use.

    Bobby and I Skyped with my husband this morning. We have a computer in the house, a Dell-brand computer that my husband’s friend bought on our behalf from an auction at the American Embassy, because he has some contacts there, so it is an imported one and not one of those cheap assembled computers from Nehru Place. Bobby spends most of his time on it, but I also use it sometimes. It has a webcam, and we use it to Skype with my husband every Friday and Sunday. We talk every Friday because my husband works in Dubai and, being a very Muslim type of place, that is the off-day over there, and Sundays, obviously, because that is when Bobby and I are at home. And from time to time, my in-laws also use Skype to talk to their daughter and son-in-law in Canada.
    So, we talked to my husband today. First Bobby gave him some long story about why his marks in the last unit tests were so-so, and then I took the headphones to talk. My husband looked tired and I told him this. He said that he had had a very busy day at the hospital yesterday. Still, he tried to look happy as he has always tried to do, and he asked me about Papaji and Mummyji, and why Bobby’s studies were suffering. He told me that he had gone for a long walk on the beach on Friday evening and that he kept thinking about me. I forgot to ask him if it was Jumeirah Beach, which is where he sometimes goes on Friday evenings and where, he says, the world’s most beautiful hotels have been built. We did not speak for too long because he had to go to the hospital. He was wearing a light blue shirt and red tie. Even though he was tired, he still looked handsome.
    My husband’s name is Dheeraj Sharma. He is a physiotherapist at a government hospital in Dubai. He has been there for one and a half years, and earns a good salary that is totally tax-free. He saves most of his money because he shares a small, little flat with four other men and lives like a sadhu, and every three months without fail he wire-transfers money to my bank account.
    Except for Rosie from the clinic, whose husband also works in Dubai, people are always saying to me, Oh ho, you poor woman, your husband is so far away! Oh ho, you poor woman, you must be missing him such a lot! Oh ho, you poor woman! and what not. It is true that he is far away, even though from Delhi it is faster to reach Dubai by air than to reach Chennai. And it is true that I miss him. But what can I say? We haveduties. As parents, as children, we have duties. I could keep my husband sitting in my lap all day, but when my in-laws grow older and get sick, who will pay for the hospital bills? The government? It took my father-in-law four years of begging and bribing the CGHS and maybe ten years of his life to get the reimbursement for his prostate operation.
    And what about my son’s education? Bobby is a good boy and most of the time he gets around ninety per