Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Personality Order or Disorder

Seema was driving the car that evening. Satish sat by her on the passenger seat. After driving some time in the downtown rush, Satish broke the news to his wife. He would lose his job beginning next month. It wasn't news to Seema, but all these weeks, she was kind of hoping that the information would be proved wrong. She kept driving without saying a word because she was so angry with everything. She never liked the work that she did. She always thought Satish should change his job because it wasn't helping him grow. But not this way. She kept silent because if she spoke, she knew it would be the beginning of a raging verbal fight that would take her nowhere. It had taken her nowhere in the past.

She could feel Satish wanted her to say something. But her emotions were more jammed than the traffic outside. It would take a long time for her to disentangle them to form proper words of either abuse or pity. This could not be happening to her again and again, she thought. When would there be a respite from frugal living? Would she have to wipe out the word 'comfort' from her life forever?

Well no one's life is comfortable in this world, she told herself. Think of people in Iraq. A Sunni woman is having a baby in a Shia hospital because she cannot reach the Sunni one in her present state. Her husband however cannot be close to her during the delivery because the militia are on the rounds every night kidnapping any Sunni men that they may find at the hospital. At least, Seema thought, I am not living that life.

But then again, her mind meandered the way that was easier to connect. And easier to concentrate and lament upon. To her friends who were financially better off than her. To those that had better houses, better jobs, better behaved kids, better relationships, better everything--at least thats what she saw and thats as much that mattered.

She tried to calm herself down. Then she looked at Satish and asked about his other job option. He seemed relaxed when he told her that he was looking at the other offer but it would not happen until his visa situation was sorted out. And then he turned on NPR to listen to more on Iraq. He also made a few comments on why Bush should not be sending any more troops to that state. Seema took her eyes off the road to look more closely at her husband's face. She could not imagine he could be thinking of Iraq when his own family's existence was at stake! Every one at work and their social circles, called Satish the level headed guy. He never lost his cool they said. But where did that 'cool' temperament take him in life, Seema thought. He never had the zest to fight for better. Seema knew she was hot headed and whimsical but to imagine that a man had lost his job and did not react to it the way any normal person would was quite unbelievable!

They reached home. Satish entered the house and switched on the TV and watched more news on Iraq. He downloaded songs from the internet and listened to them. He joked with Misi, their only daughter. And then he found the newspaper and went to the rest room-- to be there for the next half hour. Seema went about fixing dinner and started to look at Misi's middle school homework thinking to herself if being 'cool' was a personality disorder.

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