Man Of The House
Hoping
for the husband’s input on every domestic decision? Be careful what you wish
for
AFTER SEVERAL years of marriage, I
have realised that calling my husband, ‘the man of the house’ is a complete
misnomer. To begin with, he is hardly at home, the work consuming a good 10-12
hours of a weekday. Secondly, he seems to believe that the house is an
automated entity that cleans and repairs itself. It is messy when he leaves it
in the morning, and neat and orderly when he returns. It is almost as if some
fairy godmother has waved a magic wand over the place. Wet towels left on the
bed have vanished, the dust on the dresser has disappeared and dirty breakfast
dishes have been transformed into clean dinner plates. Yet, he has no curiosity
about this magic and is completely oblivious to the finer details of running a
household.
As a writer and consultant, I work
out of home. The work part is conveniently forgotten and since I am at home, I
usually end up taking care of the household chores along with typing out a
client proposal, trying to think of the next plot turn for my novel and helping
our daughter write a Hindi poem.
Meanwhile, my husband works hard by
hanging around in office trying to look busy in front of his laptop or catches
up on sleep during long office meetings. While we both don’t literally have to
get our hands dirty thanks to the domestic help available in this part of the
world, I still try to involve my husband in crucial domestic decisions so he
can feel that he is a part of the household. That is the least he can do by way
of contribution.
“What can we do to get the hardwater
stains out of the bathroom tiles? Nothing is working.” I asked once.
“Googleit,” he said helpfully, as
though it were a new brand of high strength cleaner.
“Should we buy a front-loading or a
top-loading washing machine?” “Googleit.” “We need new curtains. Let us go
shopping this weekend. There is a sale on at Fine Furnishings.” “Googleit.” It
was only when I yanked the iPhone out of his hands and said, “Maybe I should
marry Google and move in with it” that he looked up and said, “D..uh?” His eyes
had the glazed look that comes on when I mention anything that needs to be done
around the house.
When I finally dragged him to the
furnishing shop, he spent most of the time on his phone, looking up and giving
a thumbs up sign at every piece of cloth I showed him. Then after doing a
harrowing shortlisting process on my own, I asked, “Should we go with the cream
silk with peach coloured sheers that will go well with our furniture but could
look dirty soon or the dark brown one which will not show the dirt but it might
make the room look a bit dull?”
“Whichever,” he offered
magnanimously.
I stomped out of the shop while he
adopted an aggrieved long suffering look.
I recently moaned about this to a
friend during one of our complain-about-the-husband sessions.
“He doesn’t care about the house at
all. It is as though he is a transient visitor who is only interested in the
food. He might as well live in a hotel.”
“Lucky you,” said the friend. “I
have one who is obsessive compulsive about everything that goes into the house.”
“But you are so lucky,” I insisted.
“I know that your husband fixes all the electrical appliances himself, hammers
nails for putting up pictures and he has even shared his secret recipe for
making a cleaning mixture to get rid of grease stains on the kitchen chimney.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.
He scolds the maid for not cleaning the fans properly and insists on doing it
himself with me holding on to the ladder. He spots stray cobwebs that would
escape the scrutiny of Sherlock Holmes. When others go abroad, they bring back
perfumes and handbags for their wives. He goes to the supermarket and brings me
a set of kitchen towels and a super-saver six-pack of Windex.” She wore the
harried look of a long-term sufferer.
“But that’s good, isn’t it.” I
muttered.
“That’s what you think. Five months
ago, we decided to get new curtains. First he drew up a list of all shops in
Gurgaon. Then we visited each one and collected swatches of cloth. He then made
an Excel spreadsheet and compared different prices and material and decorative
impact. He even interviewed my friends on their choice of material. Nothing
seemed good enough. Now he wants to visit Delhi shops. By now, I don’t care if
we have curtains. I want to live in a hotel.”
I think I will go to Fine
Furnishings and pick up those curtains... by myself.
- by Nirupama Subramanian HT121125
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