“Harish ji, could you please move aside a bit? Let me mop the floor,” said Vimala Devi in an irritated tone.

Harish Babu moved the newspaper away from his eyes and said, “Oh, go ahead then! Who’s stopping you? I was just saying that you should use a little more phenyl. There are too many germs nowadays. And yes, you don’t properly wipe that corner.”

Vimala Devi took a deep breath and, without saying a word, slid the bucket aside and went to the other room.

Harish Babu had recently retired from his position as a bank manager. For forty years, he had managed a large bank branch with ease. Piles of files, employee strikes, and resolving customer complaints—he felt he was the undisputed king of ‘management’. After retirement, he thought it was now necessary to run the home with the same ‘efficiency’ as he ran the bank.

The problem was that for the past thirty-five years, Vimala Devi had been the unofficial CEO of this home. She had her own system, her own way. But for the last two months, since Harish Babu had started staying at home, an earthquake had struck Vimala’s well-organized world.

“Too much salt in the vegetables,” came one comment.
“You waste too much soap in the washing machine,” came one instruction.
“Look at the electricity bill! The fans are on all day,” came one complaint.

Vimala Devi would listen quietly. She knew Harish Babu had the habit of wanting to control everything. His chair had been taken away, so now he was trying to turn the home into his office.

One evening, Vimala Devi’s phone rang. It was her younger sister, Sarita, who lived in another city. As she talked, lines of worry appeared on Vimala’s face.

After hanging up, she went to Harish Babu. “Listen, I have to go to Indore tomorrow morning. Sarita’s health has suddenly worsened. Brother-in-law is troubled alone. The doctor mentioned an operation, so I might have to stay there for a week.”

Harish Babu looked away from the TV. “A week? Oh, then what about me here?”

“I’ll cook and keep the food in the fridge,” Vimala said. “The maid comes in the morning, she’ll do the sweeping, mopping, and dishes. You can put the clothes in the machine yourself. And evening tea… you do make that.”

Harish Babu gave a carefree laugh. “Oh dear, don’t worry about me. I’ve managed a staff of forty people. What’s this four-room house? You go, take care of your sister. Everything here will be ‘first class’. In fact, I’ll show you how to run the house in an even better way.”

Vimala Devi gave a faint smile. She knew ‘Manager Saab’ was about to face reality.

The next morning, Vimala left by taxi. Harish Babu started the day with great enthusiasm. He thought, “Today I will run the house my way. Very systematic.”

First, he went to the kitchen. Tea had to be made. He put the pot on, added milk. Just then, the doorbell rang. The milkman had come. It took five minutes to take the milk and settle the account. When he returned, the milk had boiled over in the kitchen and was burning on the gas stove. The smell of burning filled the entire kitchen.

“Ugh! This Vimala, she never fixes a time for the milkman,” he blamed his mistake on his wife and started cleaning the slab with a cloth. The milk had stuck. It took fifteen minutes to clean it, and his hands turned black in the process.

Well, tea was made, but he forgot to crush ginger in it. After drinking the bland, ginger-less tea, he picked up the newspaper.

At nine, the maid, Shanti, arrived.
“Sir, Madam isn’t home today?” Shanti asked.
“No, she’s gone out. You do your work. And listen, sweep every corner today. Dust remains under the sofa.”

Shanti, who was used to Vimala Devi’s sweet words, couldn’t bear Harish Babu’s bossy tone. She swept half-heartedly, and when Harish Babu corrected her method of washing dishes—”Hey, why are you scrubbing so many times?”—Shanti banged the dishes down.

“Sir, I don’t want to work. You wash them your way. I won’t come tomorrow.” Shanti stomped off.

Harish Babu was stunned. “Hey… hey, listen!” But she was gone.

By afternoon, the house resembled a battlefield. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. Dust was on the floor. Harish Babu opened the fridge and saw that Vimala had prepared dal and vegetables. He put them in the microwave to heat but forgot to remove the plastic lid. The lid melted and the food was ruined.

His stomach was growling with hunger. He managed with bread and jam.

Evening came. A strange silence spread in the house. This was the time when Vimala and he would sit on the balcony. Vimala would bring tea and share the day’s events—what happened at which neighbour’s house, vegetables have become expensive, or stories from the old days. Harish Babu would often dismiss those talks as “nonsense”.

But today, his ears were longing to hear that “nonsense”. The silence was so deep that even the ticking of the clock felt like hammer blows. He turned on the TV, but the news anchor’s voice lacked that feeling of familiarity.

By the third day, Harish Babu’s confidence was shattered. He couldn’t find his B.P. (blood pressure) medicine. Vimala always placed the box on the breakfast table. Today, he had to search the whole house. Only then he remembered that Vimala had said—”The medicines are on the second rack of the cupboard.”

He realized that finding files in the bank was easier because there were clerks. Here, he was alone.

That night, he couldn’t sleep. He kept tossing and turning. He missed Vimala a lot. Not her cooking, not the tea, but her ‘presence’. He understood that Vimala didn’t just do household chores; she transformed this brick-and-mortar house into a ‘home’ with her energy. Her nagging, “Don’t throw the towel on the bed after bathing,” which he used to resent—today, he was restless to hear that very voice.

He thought, “How arrogant I was. I thought earning money and running an office was the real work. Managing the home was just… a pastime. But this is a twenty-four-hour job, without holidays, without salary, and without promotions.”

On the sixth day, Harish Babu spent the whole day cleaning the house. He didn’t want Vimala to return and see the house as a mess. He washed the dishes (even if they weren’t cleaned properly), changed the bedsheet, and brought Vimala’s favourite marigold flowers from the market and arranged them in a vase.

On the seventh day, Vimala’s taxi stopped at the gate in the morning.

Vimala came in. She looked tired. She had thought the house would be in disarray, Harish Babu would be angry and would open a box of complaints.

But as soon as she entered the drawing-room, she was astonished. Everything was in its place (more or less). There were fresh flowers on the table.

Harish Babu came out of the kitchen carrying a tray. “Oh, you’re back? Wash your hands and face, I’ll bring tea.”

Vimala adjusted the pallu of her sari and asked incredulously, “You made tea? Didn’t Shanti come?”

Harish Babu placed the tray on the table and sat down on the sofa next to Vimala.

“Shanti ‘resigned’ and left on the very first day,” Harish Babu said sheepishly. “This tea is made by me. With ginger. And yes… it has a little less sugar, as you like it.”

Vimala took a sip of the tea. The tea had boiled a bit too much, was a bit bitter. But to Vimala, it tasted like the sweetest tea in the world.

“Everything was okay, right?” Vimala asked.

Harish Babu took Vimala’s hand in his hands. His eyes no longer held that ‘manager’ ego, but rather the respect of a companion.

“Vimala,” Harish Babu’s voice choked a little. “For forty years, I balanced balance sheets in the bank, but in the balance sheet of life, I was at a great loss. I thought I was the ‘engine’ of the house and you were just a ‘coach’. But in the last seven days, I have understood that you are the engine, and I was just enjoying the ride.”

Tears welled up in Vimala’s eyes. For the first time in thirty-five years, Harish Babu had acknowledged her work, her existence, in this way.

“Don’t say such big things,” Vimala said, smiling as she wiped her eyes. “The house belongs to both of us. You used to shield me from the outside heat, that’s why I could maintain the shade inside.”

“No,” Harish Babu shook his head. “From now on, I won’t just shield the heat. From now on, both of us will create the shade together. From tomorrow, I will help you chop vegetables. And yes, I will apologize and bring that Shanti back; she left because of me, poor thing.”

Vimala laughed. That laughter broke the silence of the house. The pictures on the walls also seemed to smile.

That evening, they were sitting on the balcony, drinking tea. Harish Babu didn’t complain that “there’s less cardamom in the tea” or “there’s too much noise on the street.” He was just quietly listening to Vimala’s stories—how Sarita is in Indore, what happened in the hospital, and what the taxi driver said on the way.

After retirement, Harish Babu had found a new job—the job of being a ‘husband’, which had no retirement, but in which he received plenty of love and peace as a ‘bonus’.

Even if it was in the evening of life, he had understood that living together doesn’t just mean living under one roof, but also recognizing each other’s labour and dedication. And sometimes, a little absence of someone to understand their importance proves to be a greater teacher than any management degree.