The Working Women Diaries

  She set the alarm for 5:30 AM. Not because she wanted to. But because that's the only time in the entire day that belongs to her. Before the house wakes up. Before the questions start. Before someone needs something from her. Five thirty in the morning is her only silence. And even that, she uses to prepare for everyone else. By 6 AM she is in the kitchen. By 7 AM she is packing bags, ironing clothes, checking if the homework is done, answering a work email, and trying to remember if she herself ate anything. She hasn't. By 8 AM she is dropping her child at school or daycare. And this is where it happens. Every single morning. Without fail. Her child cries. Those small hands gripping her dupatta. That face crumpling. Those eyes — God, those eyes — looking at her like she is the only safe thing in the world and she is leaving anyway. "Amma don't go. Please Amma. Please." And she has to go. So she peels those small fingers away, one by one,...

The message came at 9:47 PM. Her mother-in-law's sister's family was coming to visit. This weekend. All twelve of them. Staying for three days. She read the message twice. And then she opened her work calendar. Saturday — client presentation that has been rescheduled twice already. Sunday — team deliverable due by evening. Monday — quarterly review meeting, the one her manager has been preparing for since last month. The one where her presence is not optional. She put her phone down. Picked it up again. Put it down. And sat there in the silence of her bedroom doing the math that no one else in that house was doing. The math of how to be in two places at once. The math of how to cook for twelve people and also prepare a client presentation. The math of how to smile at guests and also not lose the job that pays for the house those guests are sitting in. There is no solution to this math. There never is. And yet somehow — she will solve it. She always does....

  She was five years old. My daughter. Standing at the door of my home office with her drawing in hand — a crayon house, a sun with a smiling face, and two figures that I think were supposed to be us. "Amma, see what I made." "Just a minute, baby. I'm finishing something." That minute turned into twenty. By the time I looked up, she had gone. The drawing was left on the floor near the door. The sun still smiling. Later that night, when I asked her what she wanted to do on Sunday, she said something that stopped my heart. "It's okay Amma. You'll be busy." Not with anger. Not as a complaint. Just as a fact she had already accepted. I went to the bathroom and cried. Quietly, of course. Because that's what we do. The guilt that no one prepares you for Nobody told me that becoming a working mother would mean living with a particular kind of guilt that never fully goes away. Not the guilt of doing something wrong. The guilt ...

  Let me tell you about a Tuesday evening I once had. Salary credited. That notification on my phone — the one I wait for every month like it will somehow fix everything. For about seven seconds, I felt good. Really good. And then I opened my banking app. Rent. Gone. Groceries I had already bought on credit. Gone. School fees. Gone. The EMI I don't even remember taking but am still paying. Gone. The money I lent to someone three months ago who hasn't returned it and I haven't asked for because it's awkward. That's already mentally gone. In under two minutes, that salary was already someone else's money. And I sat there thinking — I work five days a week, sometimes six. I wake up early. I skip lunch breaks. I manage office deadlines and household lists simultaneously. And at the end of it all… this is what's left? Nothing. Or very little. Which sometimes feels worse than nothing. The salary that is never just yours Here's something nobod...

There are women who wake up before everyone else in the house. Not because they want to, but because there is already a list running in their mind before the day even begins. Gas is over. Milk needs to be bought. School fee is due. Office work is pending. Someone in the house is not feeling well. And somewhere between all of this, she also has to get ready for her job and show up like everything is fine. She earns. She cares. She manages everything. But somewhere in all of this… she disappears. And that is the question this blog is really about. Who is managing her? The invisible role no one talks about When people think about working women, they often think about independence, salary, and confidence. But what they don’t see is the invisible second job. The one that doesn’t have a salary slip. remembering household needs planning meals every single day managing expenses in her head like a calculator that never switches off adjusting budgets when something unexpected happens making sure...