Sick Leave

Mitali was in a big soup. Her domestic help Nalini had not turned up. The whole house was in a mess, there was nothing edible in the fridge and she had to leave for office in another half an hour. Her husband would be reaching home in an hour after completing his night shift and somehow he had forgotten to take the extra key. Mitali was counting on Nalini to hand him the keys. Ordinarily Mitali did not mind spending  an hour or two to clean the house and she was kind of an expert in rustling up a quick and tasty meal. But this was no ordinary day. Mitali had an important meeting to attend plus the biggest issue at hand was her being almost three months pregnant. She was in that phase when she felt sick all the time and got to learn that morning sickness actually could occur at any time of the day.

*****

Mitali was happily married to Sanjay for the last five years. There was nothing extraordinary in their love story. Just two ordinary people who happened to be working for an IT company who somehow by some stroke of luck managed to travel onsite for their respective projects. It was a magical time for both Mitali and Sanjay. First, their careers took off with an assignment in Europe (which every IT employee in their imagination considers to be a paid vacation) and second, they found love in each other.

They got married as soon as feasible. They worked hard and it paid off with repeated extensions in their stay abroad (much to the dismay of the long queue waiting back in India). Mitali and Sanjay were much thrilled though. Honeymoon abroad for 4 continuous years. That meant a penthouse in India and two high end cars.

Then one day, Mitali and Sanjay saw a couple playing in the park with two tiny toddlers. And they realised that they were fast approaching their mid-thirties. (And since anyone brought up in India is schooled about the basic notion that a woman needed to become a mother before that age in order to deliver a healthy baby) Mitali and Sanjay decided together to try for a baby. They were in a good place in life and though they would not admit it to each other or to anybody else, some sort of boredom had started to creep into their marital life. Plus, a baby born abroad meant a lot to most Indians. It is like gifting your child the right to snobbery for the rest of their life.

But as it happened, their stint abroad was not extended any further. Mitali and Sanjay took the change quite bravely and decided to try harder to conceive. They counted on the baby to cheer them up because clearly adjusting back to their life in India was extremely depressing. 

Then the big day came. The day when the test strip showed two bright red parallel lines. Oh, how they celebrated! They were going to be parents! They were both secretly relieved to find out that they were not too late. But the challenges came after that.

Mitali was placed in a very hectic project that required extended hours. Ordinarily, Mitali would have embraced this happily but pregnancy brought in unanticipated changes in her body. She either felt giddy or out of breath or puked at the delicious aroma of her favorite food…all the time.

Mitali and Sanjay rushed to the doctor who brushed away the symptoms as “very normal” and recommended a book about motherhood in order to prepare her better for the fight. Well, he did not say “fight”…he said “journey” but it sounded more like “fight”.

So at this juncture, when her employer counted on Mitali to save a sinking project, she felt severely weakened by pregnancy. She needed sick leaves and work from home benefits like never before but that invited a lot of flak from her peers. Sick leaves almost became a taboo topic at office. Mitali’s manager was a lady with a 4 year old so she had hoped to get some support and sympathy from her. But after the day when her manager discussed loudly how she had worked until the very day she went into labour and how she cannot respect women who use their unborn babies to shirk work, she stopped expecting.

When Mitali related the incident to Sanjay, he was seething with rage.

“Resign now!” he said. “Don’t let them bully you like this.”

Sanjay was a good guy who loved his wife and wanted to be her knight in shining armour. But Mitali did not want to be rescued from the current situation. She knew she had to fight through it. And she had a solution.

You see India does have one big benefit. You can get a maid at a reasonable cost. No minimum wage protection translated to affordable comforts for the upper middle class. So Mitali hired a super efficient maid who cooked and cleaned for her. She even prepared different meals for Mitali and Sanjay. And she took care to cook meals that would soothe Mitali’s nausea attacks to a great extent.

Mitali was genuinely grateful to her domestic help, Nalini, and was very liberal with the perks. A new sari, a box of chocolates, an old television set and many more stuff were given away to Nalini. Mitali’s secret plea was, “Please don’t quit!”

Nalini took 2 Saturdays off every month and on these days Sanjay happily took charge of the household.

So far things were not quite perfect but they were within control.

Until today when Nalini decided to take an unapproved sick leave. This was Monday and Sanjay would not be home before another hour. And Mitali was starting to feel another bout of nausea sweep over her. She needed to be in bed…but she also had to leave for office.

Reluctantly, Mitali dialled her manager’s number.

“I’m not feeling well and my domestic help has also not turned up so I was wondering if I could take the day off or at least reach office in the second half…” Mitali mumbled on the phone.

Mitali was one of those people who felt guilty about being sick and never let their illness reflect in their voice. Her manager took that for insincerity.

“Mitali, I’ve been through this stage. Motherhood is a natural phase of life…you cannot let motherhood affect your work life. And we have a meeting with the client. I hope you know…”

Mitali did not hear anything else…she promised that she would try to find a solution and hung up.

She thought for a while and dialled Nalini’s number.

“Can you please, please come over?”, Mitali begged.

Nalini was suffering from a bad fever…and an abusive husband.

“No,” she snapped back. “How can you be so lazy? You can’t do your own work one day?”

Nalini never got a taste of education and she did not know anything about misdirected anger. She thought that it was quite alright to vent out her frustration with her personal life on her employer.

Mitali was now the doubly snubbed woman. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Before she could cry out the sadness, nausea got better of her and she vomited on the floor. She needed help. Maybe Sanjay was right, maybe she should quit. But wait, this wasn’t her fault. This was totally Nalini’s fault. After all the perks and benefits that she had been enjoying she did not have the right to fall ill. And that tone! How could she talk back at that tone? She was the root of her misery. And she would have to pay for it. You see, misdirected anger and blame game affects educated people too.

Mitali called up Nalini.

“You’re fired.” She said and felt a little better immediately.

But domestic helps do not appreciate the brevity of sentences. Nalini immediately prolonged it into a melee of conniving words.

Mitali did not have energy for this. She hung up and lied down for a while. Her high priority meeting was about to start in 10 minutes, she had fired her maid and she was increasingly feeling giddy. There was no way to save the situation.

Suddenly, her phone beeped. She reached out very slowly to read the text.

“Sick leave approved.” A single line from her manager.

Mitali was shocked by the kindness of her manager. This meant she could wait for her husband to come back and help her. This meant she could rest her body and build idle dreams about her unborn baby. This meant her manager probably did have a heart. This meant…really a lot to her.

Mitali decided to pass on the good turn. She called up Nalini and approved her sick leave too. She got up and cleaned herself and smilingly waited for her husband to get back when they could share some quality time over two cups of hot tea. Endless small talk with your spouse on a Monday is always a big thing in the life of a corporate employee.

*****

PS: Mitali’s manager never had a change of heart. The client had fallen ill and had requested Mitali’s manager for a reschedule.