The life 'we' create

Chapter 6. Golden mantra

Naveen felt light like a feather. The golden mantra bestowed upon on him by his dear friends was working wonders for him.

In place of Naveen whose spirit was tethered, a refreshed Naveen was present. His colleagues were more than happy to get their jovial and helpful Naveen back in the office.

The questions like 'Did you go an a vacation?', 'You look great, Naveen! You got any skin treatment?', or 'Please, tell me your fitness secret, bro!' stormed Naveen after a two weeks of his get-together with his friends.

"Let your wife handle her work herself. Ignore her sometimes and slowly she would stop bothering you."

"Don't keep babysitting your wife. Pregnancy is just an excuse to rest all the time."

"What's so great about pregnancy, huh? If we could, we would have also gotten pregnant. But, we wouldn't have complained like these women."

These golden words encouraged Naveen to put himself first and ignore Kusum altogether. For him, the huge baby bump his wife had became invisible; the health issues of Kusum seemed trivial and negligible.

'I am not the only one who should be taking care of her. She is an adult. She can handle herself.'

Naveen kept repeating this whenever he found himself wondering about how his wife must be doing at home.

"Should I visit Gangtok or Vishakhapatnam? Hmm... I couldn't go with Rohit and Hemal last time, so let's try for Ujjain. Okay... 12th is a holiday..." Naveen searched vacation hotspots on his phone during his lunch break.

While he was busy scrolling through his phone, his colleague, Lokik arrived at his desk and tapped his shoulder.

Naveen smiled at Lokik and went back to his phone.

"You busy, bro?" Lokik asked.

Naveen nodded. "Yup! Planning a vacation."

"That's great, man. Where are you planning on taking Bhabhi (Kusum), huh?"

Naveen raised an eyebrow. "Where did Kusum pop up from? I am going with the boys."

"Oh... Sorry. I thought you were planning on taking Kusum on vacation after your baby's arrival," Lokik explained.

"Don't know about that, but I can't miss this chance right now. Last three months have been hell and I am clearly in need of a long break right now. Once the baby arrives, it would be havoc once again. I need some time to prepare myself, bro "

"Havoc? Hell?" Lokik asked as if he heard some other language.

Naveen nodded. "What else, man? Since Kusum took an early maternity leave, I haven't got a single moment of peace. I am the only caretaker. Moreover, she didn't even want to go to her parents' place. You don't know how tough it is to tolerate your pregnant wife's tantrums."

"I think I know?" Lokik asked rhetorically.

"I didn't mean it like that. Sorry. What I want to say is that your wife's sister is there, no? In my case, Kusum didn't do anything around the house till last week."

"Till last week?" Lokik questioned. "So Kusum is working now?"

Naveen nodded victoriously. "Yes. I mean if it was upto her, she wouldn't have left her bed, but thanks to some smart decisions that I made, I can atleast peacefully breath now. I must thank my friend Hemal for that. Pregnant women are really demanding, man. I wish I knew that sooner."

Lokik couldn't believe that Naveen was speaking such stuff. Just a few weeks back, he and Naveen were discussing about how they were proud in looking after their wives and would fulfill their wives' needs even before they asked.