What were your parents doing at your age?
We are four kids. Mum was a housewife for the first two and for some part of our initial years. She had finished her BA LLB (law degree) before she got married. Dad was in sales and marketing. This used to be back in the day when sales and marketing were grouped together and you did both together.
A couple of years after the fourth kid was born, circumstances forced mum to consider getting into the work field. She was probably one of the oldest ‘freshers’ in the legal circles back in the day. Her contemporaries were already partners in firms or Notaries. She went at it though, and around 45, she even applied for the Notary Certification or what ever it was that would make her a notary, public. I remember the day she got it, she rode back in her two wheeler with a big board that had her name and qualifications painted on it.
The best part of this board was, she did not have to go to the court to do her work, she could have clients over at home as well and sign and notarise documents for them. And get paid while she did it. Mum had to work real hard and put a lot of effort to get to this point. She used to be a tuition teacher as well. She started as a part time tuition teacher – which meant, during the day she went to the court and worked as a junior lawyer doing ‘grunt’ work, then in the evenings, she went and took tuitions for kids. It used to be four houses and eventually it became just one.
Her day started really early at 5am where she got our lunch ready and packed all our boxes. The she got us the last two ready for school and sent us off, then she got ready and left for work along with dad. Depending on who has more ‘running’ around to do, they swapped the bike and bus amongst themselves. Most often it used to be mum on the bike. Dad got dropped one way then she took the bike. By this time, she has also had us, enrolled into the local gymnastics class.
We used to get back from school, change have a glass of milk and then rush to the class in the bus. We couldn’t be late. Ever. On those days when mum did get back early, we did try to get her to drop us off, but it never happened. But, if we did manage to finish getting ready early enough to be able to walk to the gym , then we did that and hoped that we would ‘run’ into mum on her way back. She wouldn’t drop us, but she would take us to the local bakery and buy each of us a pastry that was the biggest in the display shelf. One pastry each. Layered sponge cake with fresh buttercream with chocolate shavings and a cherry on top.
In the event we missed mum and this cake, we used to hope to ‘run’ into dad on our way back. Then we would get to eat a plate of chicken tikka from ‘Gaurav’ restaurant . It would give us the required energy to head back home for a more substantial meal. Dad was a marketing person- pharmaceutical marketing. I remember the ‘transparencies’ he would create for his work. ‘Nufenac is a beta blocker..’ and we were always his audience. Just the act of listening to his entire presentation every evening, made us proficient in what he was talking about. We had no understanding of what he said, but we could parrot it really well. While mum was working her second round of jobs, dad would practice his presentation with us, and then feed us and put us down for the night.
The early 1990’s was when women working was a rarity and having a mum who had a professional degree was still something of a novelty. Very few women were qualified and those that were had already been at it for a lot longer than my mum. Dad and mum were a really unique couple, in that they never made any of us feel anything but safe. Dad encouraged mum to work and supported her through the initial days of struggle, and then when he was laid off, he flipped and took over the roll of being the caregiver as well. So mum became the working woman and dad became the house husband. He learnt to cook and deal with all our glorified pms tantrums and did a wonderful job of being the best stay at home dad. Of course there is a lot more to this leg of our journey. But at 45, dad and mum were one of the most outgoing unorthodox couples you would’ve ever met.
Just a little more 