The Begums' Harems

I have often heard my men friends speak about their fantasies and equally fantastic wish-lists. And owning a ‘harem’ features quite high on that list. Well, by now, courtesy all those studies that tell us every bit about an ideal life (only for the next ‘study’ to negate them later) we know that men are polygamists by nature. What about women, we ask? We’d surely love to be a Draupadi given that she lived her life equally on the principles of polygamy and polyandry!
An inspiring friend of mine wrote to me this morning about her under performing harem. Yesterday was her wedding anniversary and apart from the various demands on energy and time made by her work, she went home late to find one of her harem-girls missing. So she had to cook and then delegate the heating and smaller bits to what she calls a ‘free service’
“Working women need wives” and maybe “many wives in case one becomes too demanding and pretty boring” rattled my friend.
In case you are wondering what am talking about, then let me clarify that my friend and her gang of girls believe in delegating (free service) and outsourcing (paid service) in a bid to move up the value chain of work-delivery that they create themselves.
The outsourcing agencies are not dependable. There are training and customization costs involved and retention is always a big issue. For at the end of the day, it is a sellers’ market and the sellers are quick to retort “Itne paise mein itnaich milega”……Also these agencies have been manipulated by many employers in our excess labour economy and am told that they have formed unions worse than what we saw in our Bengal of yore. Soon there will be contracts, law suits and charter of rights.
My life is precariously balanced on one such outsourced agency (I still haven’t dared a harem or a free delegate) and I have almost no choice in defining the deliverables and the associated conditions of the contract.
The other day a man-friend, who had to wake up early in the morning to attend to his wife’s harem commented that this is all about working out the risk. And I was quick to respond, “Do you mean you hedge it?” for increasing the size of the harem no longer implies minimizing the risk or increasing the pleasure run.
I am, however, quite concerned about the free delegated service providers---men who bravely took upon what they were clueless about. I am still waiting for legislation on reverse domestic violence when men come on air debating whether there is enough protection for the free services that they provide and whether they also ought to celebrate an ‘International Mens’ Day’

Till then, all of you Begums of this world make no bones about creating your own harem of bai-s with attitude and husbands/ boyfriends with fear.