I am an Entrepreneur’s Wife, Ahem!
Officially, I am an entrepreneur’s wife. That sounds grand, eh?
But I didn’t start out this way.
Till about a year ago, I was a modest wage-earner’s wife. What probably upscaled the employment status is the fact the wage came in Dirhams. Dirhams and Dollars have that X-factor, you see; that extra respect that makes our people roll their eyes in awe or envy.
By Jove, that was some life.
Every single day would end with the satisfaction of having earned our labour’s worth. The salary account in the bank jiggled a bit every day and by the end of the month it would be ready to hop into a washed-out wallet. I still hear the virtual burp the purse gave when the pay cheque hit the account.
For years, I lived in the calculated happiness of having enough for the two of us to keep body and soul together. No actually, a little more than that. You can’t claim to be ‘eking out an existence’ when you are living in Dubai and earning in Dirhams. That would be a lie. So, I acknowledge that life was good except when we took hard knocks, which I must confess happened a little more than frequently.
Have you seen how the Spanish footballers do the tiki-taka? Kicking the ball all around the pitch, which the erudite call ‘passing’? It was the only thing we had to suffer when we were in the employment phase — getting kicked all over the place. From one job to the other. But then, that’s par for the course here in the Gulf. People lose their seat in a blink, and they get used to it the way cars in India get used to the potholes in the roads. Thud. Vroom. Thud. Vroom. Worn, torn, suspension gone.
That’s how life is, even when you earn in Dirhams.
But then again, there was a method to the way life navigated around the snarls and sudden breaks that being an employee entailed. You knew how wide the blanket was and how far you could stretch your legs. You knew that if not this month, then the next month you could cover deficits. You knew dreams could come true if you taught yourself some discipline. Thrift and indulgence had a fixed configuration and life settled into it cozily with practiced ease. Between spending and saving, there was a fine balance.
And then came the whatever…whatever…in the beginning of 2020. Did all hell break loose on us then? No, not really. We merely got kicked once again. Only this time, it was in the gut and for good. Thank you, Corona, for moving our cheese once again.
Like in Bollywood capers, where life’s tectonics shift overnight, things turned around in a snap for me. I became an entrepreneur’s wife before I realized it.
When people asked, ‘What does your husband do?’, I proudly answered, ‘He is into business’.
I chose not to elaborate it for my own good reasons.
Why should I tell them that he was only a solopreneur taking baby steps and not a magnate with billions in stocks?
Why must I say that we were still piecing it all together to see how things would ultimately click?
So, I merely tell them, ‘My husband is an entrepreneur.’ Let them keep guessing if we drive a BMW or live in a villa facing the sea or I have a box of blings.
To people who knew we were in the limbo not so long ago, I said we had set sail and but were still cruising in coastal waters.
Why would I reveal to them that setting up a venture didn’t mean we have bought the bank’s teller machine?
Why would I break their hopes by saying that when you are in business money didn’t come by drip technology?
Why on earth would I disappoint thousands out there who aspire to own an enterprise by asserting that it is a tough game not meant for the weak-willed?
I have been an entrepreneur’s wife for a year, and I’d rather talk and behave like one.
I must realize that there are no potholes on the road now. We would be lucky if we find a road among potholes.
I must learn to harvest rain-water during monsoon, so we can fare all right in times of drought.
I must be a mermaid to the man who chose to dive in the choppy seas to fetch pearls.
I must know that the first million is always the toughest to make; but if one would somehow make it to the first million, the rest would follow in due course.
Above all, I must remember that you don’t reach milestones; they appear in front of you as you keep walking ahead.
(I wrote this piece to mark the first anniversary of our enterprise. It has been quite a roller-coaster ride — heady, scary, but never dreary.)