PAST
29th August 2016
8:30 pm
It was at least an hour of me yelling on the phone.
“No Nair, how could you submit those records to the HR without consulting me?”
“Ma’am, they were due today and we had to submit them. I thought it was completed so I submitted them early and anyway, Ravi sir was going off about how late we submit each record"
“It's not about when you submit them, Nair. It's about you telling me as your superior. I didn’t get my position because I didn’t know when I have submit my records"
“There is no superior or inferior in this world, ma’am. That concept is long gone. Anyhow, I was helping you by submitting your records. After all, you are the first female chief dentist in our hospital”
In other words he said, women need help to grow from one position to another and even with ranks we are inferior. As if I'd never had to work a day to get to where I was.
“Shut up, Nair. Its your job to submit those records and its also your job to inform me before you do. Next time, I should know about it before it reaches Dr. Ravi's desk"
“Sure ma’am. If you just want to be informed, ill inform you"
I rolled my eyes as far as it could roll. Frustrating, toxic masculinity is absolutely frustrating. If not, absolutely infuriating. It’s not like he’d say the same thing to Ravi. Some days I feel like single handedly destroying the whole patriarchy.
“Where’s Ayat?”
“She's in her room reading something"
Mum was in the kitchen again even when she had a bad muscle pull in the morning. I told her so many times not to overstrain herself . She just doesn’t listen. At this point I even stopped advising.
Ayat was in her room. Reading her kindle like it was her life. She never bothered to look at me with that thing around. Her room was so messy. I’ve told her so many times to clean it. She just doesn’t listen . Why won’t she listen to me? I’m her mother. I’m older than her.
“Ayat, why is your room so messy? I’ve told you so many darn times to clean it. Is it so hard to do that? It barely takes a few minutes to keep your things back in place. Why can’t you just follow what I say?”
“Stop it!”
“Stop what? If you cleaned your room, you wouldn’t have to hear from me”
“Stop venting your frustration on Adi uncle on me. I’m not your venting machine"
That pushed a pin straight through my heart. What the hell? I wasn’t trying to vent out on her. How dare she accuse me of that? I just want her to clean her darn room.
“What does Nair have to do with this? I’m not venting out on you. I’m asking you to clean your room and you’re defying me. If you cleaned, I wouldn’t have yelled"
“My room is always messy. Why today mom? Why today huh?”
“ Because" My voice boomed across the room “you don’t clean it any day and some days you need to be told sternly to do your own work"
“no, you just need someone to vent out on"
Who does she think she is? I didn’t say anything after that. I couldn’t explain to a freaking teenager that those two things were unrelated. I am a professional, I don’t mix office life with personal life. I stared at her hard, then I walked out yelling and banging the door.
YOU ARE READING
The Answer Is Within these Walls
Mystery / ThrillerThe Anand Joshi family always known to be quite the feminists and most open-minded their society has never known. A regular family with a senior doctor and an average engineer. Not rich enough to pay any ransom, not poor enough to have mixed with an...
