Thursday, May 26, 2011

My Marriage

I married when I was barely 18. We were young and madly in love. He was from a very rich family and showered me with gifts. His parents were happy thinking that marriage would make their wayward son settle down and promised my parents to take care of me. I knew he was on drugs, but thought our love would make him give it up as he had promised. I stopped studying, but he continued. He went back to Delhi to do his graduation. When he was in the second year, one day, he was found dead in the toilet due to an overdose. Already, I was like a maid in that house, with him studying and not staying with me, and my situation worsened after he passed away. I came home to be with my parents.

My parents sent me to Bangalore to do a BSc course in Biotechnology to keep me away from the talks of the neighbours and relatives. During this time, I met my second husband. This was my second chance in love and life, and he stood by me through thick and thin. He was disowned by his parents when he decided to marry me. He started working for a BPO to support me. I had two children in quick succession and decided to be a house-wife. After a couple of years, he started his own business. We have come a long way from where we started.

Things however, did not turn out as good as I expected. He started having an extra-marital affair. He hired her as a Manager and people started telling me about the late night dinners and client meetings. I fought and confronted him and it became very ugly. He said he picked me up from the ditch, severed ties with his family and married me, and now, I doubt him. I managed to get the girl fired. Now, there is another management trainee and I heard the same things have started with her. The business trips are getting frequent, and he is coming late very often. I am in my late thirties now. He is a good father to my kids, and I have decided to live in this house for them. I am past questioning.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Me too Saina-chasing the feather

Past: December, 2006. Badminton tournament in ex-office. (too many exes in too many categories i say. tsk tsk! ) Me and my manager were thrashed all over the court by two huge and married ladies. Well, we were single then. Slim and trim, may i add and assumed we had a better chance of winning. Oh, they were merciless. One of our colleagues advised us and said, i told you guys to hit hard and high. It looked like you were showering flowers on them. We lost but, we decided in unison, to change the coach. :-)

Present: With my past experience of excellent sportsmanship, ladies and gentlemen, i played badminton the week before last and lost gracefully, with honour and consistency, in all matches that i participated. A colleague of mine gave her name but backed out in the last minute. i had metioned i would have been interested, so i was asked to stand in her place. M was my partner in the women's doubles. i went, encouraged by the fact that she has fractured her right ankle and me, my left. We limped together to the court and decided we would point out the cock (as we also call shuttles) to each other and play spot-the-shuttle.

We did not run at all, but made the other party run so much that we almost won the match. We lost 14-15. Then i partnered my current manager and participated in the mixed-doubles. This time, not only the opponents, but i made my partner also run around that it almost looked like we would win.
However, i suddenly remembered his feedback on appraisal that one needs to be consistent, and maintained it. We lost again. This time 12-15.

My partner M, went on to win many matches and reached the women's finals without running much. Many people wanted to act that they were all great players and stuck to the line, "i have not played for 5 yrs. i am out of practice etc" i stuck to, "if only i hadn't fractured my ankle" :-)