The Team

Last week a young married couple visited us for dinner. They had just finished their first year of marriage, but where they should have been happy and blissful, they looked worried and off key.

By the second drink the story started coming out. The young lady was worried that her husband was drifting away. They both held responsible jobs with multinational companies. During the weekends, he did not want to help around the house and was content to just lie and watch TV the whole time while the wife kept on working. The lad only perked up when there were parties to go to and people to meet.


The young lad on the other hand thought that his wife had changed since marriage. The only time they had with each other was the weekend, when she insisted to talking and doing things like getting the house cleaned, shopping for the week and planning on their financial future and investments etc. "How unromantic!! How boring!! We have all our lives to do this, now in the early part of our marriage lets spend more time having fun, going for parties and meeting friends"he said.

If you look at it, both were right of course and the issue was quickly resolved by helping them understand that while one was task focused in her behaviour, the other was people focused and little bit of understanding of each other's behaviour would help in smoothing the relationship.

After they left, as we sat talking, Anu and I realized that, actually we have been wading through a similar relationship for the last ten years. Anu is task focused, while I am people focused.

Every weekend I would invite scores of people home, basking in the thoughts of evening. " Which songs should we sing ? Lets make it a Ghazal theme tonight. Let me find my book of Mhd. Rafi lyrics. Should we also invite the Roys? Mr. Roy sings Rafi songs really well." And all this while Anu would be undergoing waves and waves of anxiety as she could see the long list of things that needed to be done before the guests came and the long list of things which would not get done(which she had planned for weekend)because of the (out of the blue) preparations for the evening.

Come evening , Anu would be sprinting between the kitchen and the various rooms. While the fish moilee was simmering she would be running around the rooms making sure that they were neat and new bedsheets or covers were arranged( of course, Ved and I would have made sure all the sheets that she had put in the morning were crumpled and needed changing)
While the pork vindaloo bubbled she would be arranging the flowers in the vase. While the muttur pulao steamed, she would be arranging the silverware. With every passing hour the acidic strength in her comments(which she would carelessly fling over her shoulder while passing by) would steadily increase, till close to seven pm, I would be ruing the fact that I had ever invited anybody to my home and we would actually have full blown quarrel just before the first guest arrived.

How quickly things can change. The roles would reverse after the arrival of the first guest. The queen of the kitchen , the empress of the house would suddenly hand over the sceptre and the underling would become the King, greeting people in, ushering them to their places, making them comfortable and hobnobbing with the gentry. And Lo, I would become the life of the party and there would be lots of laughter, fun, singing, dancing and drinking. Anu would be there as a graceful hostess, but always in the background, making sure the food was heated before it came to the dining table, everybody got their favorite dish and nobody left without having desert. She would discreetly signal to me when she saw an empty glass or plate. The tigress who preyed on helpless mortals like Ved and me would have metamorphosed into a charming, witty doe eyed beauty.


On the face of it I really do not know how we have managed this over the last 10 years,but as we sat that evening thinking about the young couple who had just left we realized a few things. We understood that one of things which kept us going that we never grudged each other. Anu never grudged me for being the life of the party, while I never grudged her reputation as superlative cook and a fabulous homemaker. We both were clear, that our roles were different due to our temperaments, but we tried to help each other succeed in our respective roles. But most importantly we never had an entity called ego between us. Somehow we had banished this creature out of our house. All in all we are a great team!