For the 23 odd years that we have been married, my husband has mostly had the same
breakfast on weekdays – Fried eggs and toast.
He’s fairly fuss free that way.
The drill is simple. He comes back from the gym and gives himself exactly 15 minutes to bathe,
get dressed, eat breakfast and leave for office.
So loosely, the breakfast and he reach the table at the same time. Well, mostly.
Sometimes the breakfast has to wait and sometimes he. Which means the breakfast reaches him
in varying degrees of warmth. This process is in the capable hands of Suvarna, my cook, and her
estimate of when bhaiya will be ready.
I have never really interfered in this process because why upset what is working?
Except. One. Day. My husband casually remarked – the eggs are quite cold nowadays, no?
OH.MY.GOD.
3 women died of guilt. Me, Suvarna, and Laxmi, my cleaner, who literally had no role to play in
breakfast preparation.
3 women with superwomen syndrome.
Bhaiya ko Thanda anda kaise diya?
So next day there was a strategy in place. My role was to keep a strict eye on when bhaiya
would come out of the bath. Ignore self completely. Focus on Bhaiya.
I had to signal Suvarna to start preparing the eggs at that point. Laxmi who had no role to play,
also hung around in the kitchen passing around stuff and generally pottering around uselessly.
The eggs appeared at the dining table exactly at the same time as my husband. We would have
put the Japanese to shame. Kaizen.
This madness continued for some time and then I gave up. To his credit, my husband too noticed
something was up. The eggs were getting too much love. He mentioned it one day amusedly.
And things promptly went back to non kaizen days.
That was my tryst with superwoman syndrome.
And if you are a woman you will get this.
The dinner should be served warm. You have to tuck the kids in even if you have a pending
presentation that is crying for attention. The rotis have to be gol because how dare they not? You
have to raise your hand for a project only if you are 1500% ready.
But you have to ask yourself – what are a couple of cold fried eggs in the larger scheme of
things?
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