The Thing About Nikhil

The thing about Nikhil is that he helps out with chores quite regularly. On most days, his gender roles and responsibilities sensor is switched off, and so jobs around the house are not mine alone to own and conquer.

If the laundry is dry he folds it. If we're in the mood for some mutton, he makes it. And that's just the beautiful thing about my Mr. Mehra.

He was raised to believe that we live in an egalitarian world, and that a wife wouldn't someday swoop in and miraculously free him of all that is trivial but essential.

Now, on my best days, I'm a sloth.

I'm not persnickety. I'm not meticulous. I live in abandon.

Nikhil is the Yin to my Yang. The black to my white. The fruit juice to my cola (if you will.)

Our job lists don't collide on given day and in our scheme of things there are hardly any Venn Diagrams that draw up a clear intersection of things we both need to do. And yet we live and laugh and love as if our chores aren't staring back at us, and perhaps judging only me for the way I choose to conduct my business.

So, I conveniently threw out my back this week. I was unable to sleep, unwilling to stay put and incapable of accepting that something like 'this', could happen to someone like 'me'. And so, I decided to let Nikhil take the reigns for a while (not that I had to because if you know Nikhil at all, you also that the reigns have basically always belonged to him, served him and obeyed only him.)

In addition to fetching me my ice pack and coming home at noon just to heat up my lunch, and putting his own bouts of PMS on hold (and we're talking major mood swing episodes here), Nikhil has also taken on my share of the chores.

Everyday, come 7 o clock, he pours me a glass of red and helps me forget that I'm temporarily broken and somewhat immobile. I throw a tantrum sometimes because I'm annoyed that something like this has thrown me off my game with such finality.

I don't think Nikhil is the perfect husband. If fact, he's quite annoying when he wants to be, but on days like these when I can't move, can't sit up straight and can't really go anywhere, a single look reminds me, that I'd rather not be anywhere else, anyway.