http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/844311.cms


LOPAMUDRA GHATAK

ECONOMICTIMES.COM[ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2004 01:25:28 AM ]
For the past 2 years, Janaki Raman has been living with her software engineer husband Mikesh Ravi in Seattle. The 30-year-old chucked her job as an IT analyst in a market research firm in Chennai to join her tech husband in the USA. She had hoped that she would be able to kickstart her own career there and realise her own aspirations.

But that was not to be. ‘Cause after moving west, the physics graduate from Chennai university found herself living a different life. The hope of making a new beginning and the quest of pursuing a career took a backseat as she found herself changing the décor, watering the plants. In short, she was taking care of her husband, the house, the plants – everything but herself.

Having become a full-fledged homemaker , Raman’s life was a complete antithesis from her working days in Chennai. With her career on the backburner, Raman tried to fill the empty gaps in time by reading books and doing up the house as she waited for Mikesh to come back home. Initially, she tried to fight loneliness by bonding with the Indian community but soon realised that such superficial ties did not appeal to her.

Thrust with increasing domestic responsibilities, Raman’s dream of carving her own niche in a new country soon died. Friendless in a new land, she tried hard to battle loneliness as she tried to seek an accommodating partner in the quiet, introvert and reticent Mikesh.

Increasingly, the effervescent Raman found felt herself being marooned on an island of emotions as she sought to fight loneliness and homesickness, bundled into one. The absence of a proper support system in place made her crave for the warmth of her home, her simple friends in Chennai and the general warmth that surrounded India.

Feeling cold and lonely, the long hours spent at home drove her to a point of semi-despair as she felt that she was drifting without any footing of her own in life. The absence of a support system gnawed into her psyche. While she tried to accept the fact that she could begin working once her work permit came through, life itself was becoming a difficult chore for the bubbly and lively Raman.

Feeling helpless and lost, she wanted to share her thoughts, and emotions. And especially now, that she was expecting a visit from the stork. A plethora of emotions choked her up as she dithered whether bringing a child at this point in time would be a sensible one.


With little or no help available, her first feeling was that of panic as she harboured thoughts of going back to India. Now with the baby due, return to India was not in the offing as she increasingly felt that she was living the life of a drifter with no real moorings in her life.

While her friends and batchmates were successfully managing careers and homes with love, warmth and strife, Raman felt that she was being devoid of simple joys. With no job of her own, she felt that the air of self-assurance that enveloped her earlier had disappeared.

As work pressure climbed, the already reticent Mikesh retreated further into his own shell. The workaholic plunged deeper behind networking and programming and silence slowly became a dominant importance in their domestic partnership.

For the simpleton Raman, it was not easy adapting to a new land and culture, amidst no friends. A new climate, new ethos and new relationships were not easy to come by. With nothing much to keep her going, she finally enrolled herself in a music school to meet some new people and build her own circle.

Raman tried her best to beat claustrophobia and looked forward to beginning a new life, even as she fought her own issues. Torn between her head and her heart, she started feeling that her career had been pushed to the background for a time now. And as she pushed her career to the back and beyond of her life, she realized with a pang that all her dreams and aspirations would have to be put on hold.

But was it fair that she sacrifice her personal desires and aspirations even as she seemed to be making all the adjustments in building a family and giving birth to a new life?

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