It was a day when the pace of work was less. I and a lady colleague were at the table drinking coffee. She remarked that if she had a husband like me who travelled so much then she would go crazy. She was like how we Indians manage to live a life slogging so much. We take phone calls, when we are at home or even on vacation. We don’t have any personal life was the comment.
I saw what they mean, and would capture it some sentences below. In Europe there is a difference. No official call is taken after office hours. All office work has to finish during the official hours. The social life is also well structured, if I had to take any colleague to dinner or lunch, I have to set it up at least a month in advance. It was a learning for me, but with due course of time, I realized that they live a very systematic life. They have the right balance between work, family and their own life. The concept of personal time or own life is not common in India. There both the husband and wife have their independent earnings and also keep it so. They divide the expenditure and work equally. There is a sort of independence alien to our norms and culture. The day is very systematically divided. A typical day starts in the morning, with the gym, taking care of kids etc, to work, to home back, then kids time, an early dinner, and then their own time. Its more or less very systematic. Kids are given their own rooms and more or less after a few months are in a separate room.
So what is the take? Is the life they live better or how we live is better?
