A Handfull

Bringing up twins has its own joys and pains. I still remember that the day I discovered that I had twins , in the third month of my pregnancy and I had started crying on the diagnostic table only.It was after a gap of seven years that i was having a ked and two on top of that. My university was twenty five km. from where I was staying. I did not have a full time servant and the due date that the doctor had given was toward the beginning of June. I think i kept crying most of the time and Mrs Rizwi who was staying at Vijaya Towers was a great comfort.However things turned out to be really well planned. In the month of February a couple who was looking for a job came to our flats. They were a Nepali couple and since Somu could speak in Nepali, the wife started working for us and the husband got a job as a cowkidar in the flats. They stayed in our garage downstairs and I really owe a lot to Lakshmi who managed my house for four years. She was really God send. My kids were born on 4th April and I got summer holidays for two months and I could join my duties in JUly. I could attend all my Conferences and Lakshmi really managed the house and kept it spick and span. She even trained Tarun Varun and it was such a pleasure to see them in the evening. They would be dressed in different combinations, the hair styles done differently each day and with a liberal amount of Johnson Baby Talc they would smell very good. The twins soon became a favorite of the whole complex and found many new Uncles and Auntys, to spoli them and pamper them. Particularly important were Mrs. Shorey, who was teaching in Nasr School and and is now its Principle at Kondapur and Mrs. Reddy, who would spoil them with giving so many things to eat. Bringing up the kids made me realsie how important a househol;d support it for a working mother. I had a tough time for my elder son Bittu who was brought up in creches , which were really not much in the 80's. I have through out my career realized the importance of support to women who are working outside the house and staying in nuclear families. Unless the children are taken care of a woman cannot give in her full attention to the work. We blame many women for not concentrating on their jobs at the lower level but one has to really talk to them and see how they manage their kids and family responsibilities with their work.