Living Single - Pavitra

10 years back I met Pavitra at office. In her early 40’s then she was in a senior technical role in one of the technical departments, my initial interaction with her were very minimal. Things changed after 3-4 months and Pavitra  and I  got to work together directly with one of the clients. Though in the same project we were handling 2 different streams and again were independently working. It was almost after 1month of working in this project that Pavitra started discussing the problems she was facing dealing with the client team – getting information was difficult, they were not open to suggestion/feedbacks, and if she had any doubts to be clarified they wont take that as priority – I thought even I was having similar problems so its not just me who felt miserable :) And so we started talking more and often discussed project issues.

By the end of 2^nd month I was getting comfortable with my client (I realized its better to play along with my clients and get answers when they are willing to give than keep pushing for answers) Pavitra too was progressing fine , but for 1-2 instance where she had rough interaction with her client. And then one day just before End of day at work, my client manager called me and told that Pavitra became hysterical and they don’t want to escalate it to our manager at this point of time so informing me if I can talk to her … this was little too much for me to handle, as Pavitra was my senior in all sense … I looked at my client and told him will talk to her  …..

Before leaving for the day that day, I messaged her asking if we could talk over coffee and she agreed … when I met her for coffee her eyes were already swollen (of crying) and I was not sure from where to begin , so I just said that client had called me and mentioned about some argument which happened between her and client .. and she said , she had enough of insults and would not tolerate being put down again and again by the other client .. and then she opened up  ‘ Everybody thinks that they can just walk over me and get away with it ‘ , And I asked ‘Who is everybody?’

And Pavitra said -- to start with the man I got married to ..  3 months after our marriage he just left me , I was pregnant then I don’t even know if he knows that he has a son , I have not seen him since then, its almost 14 years now … my son has special needs and my mother takes care of him, he is not with me now … I am working for him so that his needs can be taken care of even if I am not there … .. and here I have to go through so much of stress and insults, and people expect that I will tolerate all this …. I was little shocked to here her personal story, and asked have you got Divorced formally ? ‘No’ she answered ….  first thing which came in my mind was to ask her if she ever thought of going for counselling  … but  not knowing what to say , I just told her not to work out so much, people don’t know what all things have happened in her life … then I suggested why don’t you ask for change of project …In couple of weeks she changed her project and in few months she joined another company and since then I have lost contact with her  ….  but to think about Pavitra’s life .. time made her hard enough to face things , but at times I wonder would it have not been  possible that she had a better life , whom to blame people, time, destiny, fate , god  …

I am a single mom and I'm the breadwinner and I have to work and I have to do these things and that's just the way it is. I don't think my son even knows any different.

Charisma Carpenter