The clock on her table glowed green and beeped. It was 8 pm, and the last day of the financial quarter; this was another one in a series of evenings when Riti was working late. She glanced out of the window at the road below where a long series of red tail-lights moved like a predatorial snake. It was another one of those days when she would be reaching home to find her son sleeping. She sighed and turned back to face her laptop.

When she next looked out of the window, the lights on the road had thinned down to one or two every minute. The clock on her system glowed and beeped 11 pm. She re-read the report she had been working on, mailed it and called her driver.

“Bhaiya, car gate pe le aao (Driver, please get the car out)”, she said.

As she walked out of the building, Riti could not help but feel affection for her workplace. She had been working here for close to ten years now. While most of her friends had already hopped 2-3 companies by now, she had stuck on to this place. She had been placed at this bank via a campus placement. From day one, she had fallen in love with the place. While others cribbed about work pressures, demanding timelines and bad paychecks, she loved her work for the high it gave her. For eight years work had been her refuge, her haven. People meditated to find peace, she worked.

Then two years back, things changed. She still loved her work. But now her unconditional love for her work had been replaced by another unconditional love – that for her new-born son. After a break of eight months, when she had returned to work, she found that there was a new emotion she had to deal with. A feeling that made her want to leave work and rush back home. A feeling that gnawed at her insides all the while she was at work. It was a feeling that, strangely, seemed to bother only her, even though both she and her husband had become parents.

As a young child, she had read a story about a wall built next to the sea. There was a small hole in the wall. Every day, at high tide, water would rush against this wall. Slowly the hole in the wall grew bigger, till one day it gave way. She felt like that right now. The guilt was like the sea pushing against her wall of self-preservation. Day by day she could feel that hole growing bigger. The feeling that plagued working women around the world was now her companion as well. How long would it be before she gave in to the pressure?

Do you or your spouse feel depressed about leaving your child behind? How do you make up for it?