Kyunki, Lakshmi wants something too!
(Silver winner of Blogadda's What Women Want contest.! Thank you RG for the inspiration!)
“Lakshmi….I need some pickle for my curd rice. Can you get that from the Kitchen?” - requested Gopalan, with a mild voice. But Lakshmi was more worried about Tulsi’s life. She was worried if Tulsi could ever get married after the tragic demise of her boyfriend. She was choked in sorrow, and getting the pickle for Gopalan’s curd rice was least of her priorities.
She was immersed in the Tamil dubbed version of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’. Gopalan has almost made this a habit of bugging Lakshmi for one thing or the other during this time. He thinks that she is damaging her brain cells by watching this soap.
In her defense ‘Kyunki’ was the only ‘her time’ she got in her busy day. She wakes up at 3 AM to make sure Mark, in Australia, gets all the help he wants to troubleshoot his new Windows 7 PC. Her younger son Sundar has to be in TCS by 4 AM, so that he can start trouble shooting (Sir, is your desktop plugged in? Yes sir, you have to plug it in first, and THEN press the power button. Oh it works? great. You are welcome, sir) computers in Australia. Sundar hates eating outside, and Lakshmi know this. She makes sure she packs him both breakfast and lunch. This pretty much eats up her time before the sunrise. Once the rest of the world wakes up she takes care of her ‘routine’, which includes a gazillion things in a systematic order. She almost eases through these and still allocates time to feed and assist Gopalan’s bed ridden mother. Even though she felt this responsibility has been forced into her, she never once showed her disapproval straight to his mother.
Gopalan gets it. He thought he had pretty good control over her likes, and made sure that he gets those to her before even she asks.
If Lakshmi is waking up at 3AM, he gets up at 2:30 to makes sure the water heater is on. If she is busy making Sundar’s lunch, he prepares her morning filter coffee. Every time she is helping his ailing mother, Gopalan is pretty vocal about how appreciative he is of all the effort she is putting into this. He patiently waits for hours (some time days) solving Sudoku outside Sareeworld, while Lakshmi takes her own time selecting the Sundari silk saree of her choice. Since Lakshmi thinks that Luknow is the awesomest place in the whole friggin world (Yes, her parents place), he makes it a point that they all went to Luknow at least twice a year in the name of vacation. He even got her an aquarium when Sundar was 4, and throwing everything that he got in hand. He took the responsibility of maintaining and feeding the fishes, and still does till date.
He analyzed himself on how he has done so far. Complementing her efforts – check. Sharing family work load – check. Provide emotional and moral support – check. Cater to her personal likes/dislikes – check. Respecting her personal space – check. Being a great husband overall – check. But this was all in his mind.
But what did Lakshmi REALLY want?
One full hour of uninterrupted ‘Kyunki Saas…’ goodness. Somehow Gopalan failed to understand this!
This post is my lame attempt for BlogAdda's contest - What Women Want!
