I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where six of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic was chosen by yours truly. The five other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, gaelikaa, Maxi, Paul, Shackman, and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!
The first time that I really felt the pangs of separation was way back in 1969. My marriage was all of five months old when I was deputed to coordinate a seven month long all India market research survey by traveling all over the country with just three possible meetings with my brand new bride. I had to send her off to her mother’s place and get on with the design and personal conducting of the survey and as was expected, was able to meet my wife on only three occasions during the survey. There were times when I came very near quitting the job but was prevented from doing so by a more intelligent and patient wife.
The next heart wrenching separation was when we sent Ranjan away to boarding school in 1984. In retrospect, it did him and the two of us a world of good but while he was away it was totally different.
The third experience, much less difficult to bear but a bit boring was when I moved to the South of India on an assignment in 1998, leaving Urmeela behind to manage the household as Ranjan was at a critical stage of his career in Pune. I had to wind up that assignment due to completely unavoidable circumstances and return to Pune at the end of a year. I had to return to the same place in 2001 for another stint of six months to establish phase II of the assignment. During both occasions, Urmeela did come down to stay with me, but was most uncomfortable there as she could not handle the language in that almost rural area of Tamil Nadu.
Apart from these four occasions, I have of course had short term separations for periods lasting from about a week to up to eight weeks on business related travel within India and overseas. Those were not too difficult because I was too busy with work and work related evening occupations.
Then came the major separations between me and some of teeth. The less said the better about those experiences!
Finally, a permanent separation took place between me and my wife of forty years in 2009 and I am yet to totally recover from that.
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