Ok, so the nanny is having an affair. There are too many phone calls, sweet whispers into the night and generally a haze of happiness surrounding her. The calls and messages history are deleted everyday and the phones, in fact two of them, one given by me and one hers, are kept hidden from sight.

But while she is humming, “Pyaar hua, chupke se,”  I am going mad as I inwardly sing, “Yeh kya hua… kaise hua, kab hua, kyon hua?” She has a look of utter contentment on her face while my botox lines are deepening by the day. She is floating in air while I am sinking in the depths of darkness. Never has love bothered me so much. Not someone else’s atleast. At 37, I thought I had figured out the only love story that ever mattered to me. My own. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would have to deal with another love story in this lifetime, least of all my nanny’s.

And just as you think I have completely lost it, let me clarify. I do not begrudge her happiness nor I am against people falling in love. I firmly believe in the concept that every person has the right to fall in love.  So why is this particular love story troubling me? Making me anxious? Why am I not sleeping at night? Why am I in an obsessive state of, “What if?” No, we are not in love with the same man.  I am worried because the woman in love takes care of my baby. Just when I thought that the baby was settled with her, her affair has unsettled my equanimity.

If I sound a tad selfish, it is only because, in India a woman’s work and motherhood cannot co-exist without a solid support system and she is my support system. But love can make you do things you never knew you were capable of. And love is blind and deaf and dumb. So as a super-stressed mom, I worry every second I am out of the house whether she has called her boyfriend home or if she is whispering sweet nothings into the phone while my baby competes for her attention. Is she alert as before or is her mind weaving fairy-tales of happily-ever-after? Is the guy she is seeing a decent one or a crook taking her for a ride?  I am a die hard romantic myself. Why then can I not see the silver lining in this fairy-tale?

As much as I wish she finds her prince charming, a part of me is wary of the possibility. A part of me wants to meet the guy who has stolen her sleep and mine. The man who has put both our lives in a tumult. Inspired rose-tinted dreams in one woman and nightmares in another. It is almost like a love triangle playing out. Almost as if the mystery guy and I are competing for the time and mind-space of the nanny. Both do not want to lose her. And so we both are trying our best to woo her as best as we can. And the only one winning is the maid who is having her cake and eating it too.

She thinks I do not know about her clandestine affair. I think she doesn’t know that I know. Or maybe she does and is only pretends that she can’t.  Oh, what a mess this whole situation is! One thing I do know is that my nanny is hopelessly ignorant of the turmoil she is causing me. She is busy idolising her man while I continue to crib about her  with my man over her. She is dreaming of marital bliss while the marital harmony in my home is shattered.  Her face glows with the first flush of love while my frown lines need botox.

When did I let my nanny have so much power over me?  How did she become the most important person in our lives? None of us know. Just a lot of questions with no answers. And while we fret it out, I hear her crooning in the kitchen softly on the phone, ‘Tum aaye toh fizaaon mein ek nasha hai.’ I want to pick up the glass vase and throw it at Mr Cupid. But he will only wink and laugh so I must give in to the power of love. Breathe in and out and wait for the dice of fate to roll.

And wait to see who wins. Love or real life.

Shabia Ravi Walia has been a media professional for the past 15 years, dabbling in production, creative direction and writing. However her biggest achievement, she says is the birth of her baby Sia and penning down the experiences associated with it in her book  ‘Mamma Mania’ (http://www.flipkart.com/books/8184430383).