Free The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur Page B

wear suits to the office? Why is it a rule in government offices and big companies that all the employees have to dress properly? The reason is simple. The clothes that you wear every morning control how you think about yourself and how the world thinks about you. I have even seen this with myself. When I wear a smart, nicely starched sari to the clinic, I feel strong and important, I feel in control of all things and all people around me. I have even seen that the nurses, the cleaners, the lab assistants and technicians also give me a particular type of respect that I normally don’t get when I am wearing a churidar kurta.
    See, wearing a suit will help Bobby. Just now he is going through a difficult time, and the truth is that all teenagers go through these types of phases. But wearing a suit will give him a type of confidence that he does not have. Maybe it will also make him more disciplined. Not even ten or fifteen years ago, each and every school required boys to wear a blazer and tie as part of the school uniform. And how smart and confident theboys used to be. I remember so clearly seeing them waiting for their school buses on winter mornings, blazers and ties, shirts always tucked in properly, hair combed with a nice side parting. But that is all changing now. In my son’s school, for example, the children now just wear these sweatshirts with hoods in winter, sweatshirts that are at least two sizes too big for them, with hoods. The smart blue blazer and striped tie are all gone. It is very sad to see today’s schoolboys. The hair is never combed, the shirts are hanging out and their pants are so loose that half the time you can see their underwear. And are the girls any better? They shorten the hems of their skirts and roll their socks down to their ankles, and all around all you see are legs, naked legs. Don’t school principals and all those important people in the Education ministry see how this affects children? Untidy dressing makes untidy minds. But I know that when my Bobby puts on the suit that I buy him, he will come to know something about what it feels like to be an important person, to be a powerful executive in a multinational company or an international bank.
    Obviously I will have to lie to Bobby and tell him that I have bought the suit for a family wedding, because last year when I bought him a tie, he became very angry with me. I had bought it just like that, and that is the truth. I was walking around in Sarojini Nagar market, trying to buy socks for him, when I saw a beautiful silk tie with red paisleys in a showroom window, and it was on sale, and I thought that Bobby would look so handsome wearing it, and so I bought it. But what can I say? What is this? he shouted. No, he did not actually shout because Bobby is a good boy who does not raise his voice,especially not at his mother, but, What is this? he said, throwing the tie on the bed and looking at me like I had committed some big crime. Why did you buy this? What are you doing to me? What do you want from me? I was quite shocked by his reaction, but you know how boys of his age can be, and so I kept quiet. Still, my Bobby did wear it one time, in December, at my husband’s cousin’s wedding, and he looked even more handsome than I had imagined. Actually, he looked just like his father in the early days.
    Maybe I should talk a little bit about my husband in his early days, about how handsome he was, how smart and handsome he was. It is not that my husband is not handsome now, but then, when he was younger, there was that special type of handsomeness, the boyish type of handsomeness that shines. I remember so clearly the first time I saw him. It was almost eighteen years ago, in December 1993. Still, I can see him so clearly in a light yellow shirt and navy-blue pleated pants, sitting on the divan in my father’s house in Meerut, his hands fair and clean resting on his knees. He had come with his parents and sisters to meet me. And I