Being a diplomat’s wife and a working mother as well can be quite a juggling act that flies in the face of the notion that embassy wives have it good all the time.

When most of us are still groggy and not quite all there, Rita Thapa is on her way to office. Work at the World Health Organisation starts at 8 a.m., but Thapa, a director at its South-East Asian regional Office in New Delhi, is at her desk a good half-hour earlier so that she can plan her day better. But in the evening after a long day in office, she slips into an entirely different persona-that of an ambassador’s wife. Her husband, Bhekh B. Thapa, is Kathmandu’s man in the Capital.

Far from being ladies of leisure, they lead turbo-charged lives, a world removed from the impression we carry back with us from the cocktail circuit.

As Rita Thapa puts it: “No doubt, juggling both fronts has been tough. So tough that none my three children wanted to be come a doctor like me.”

Still, being a diplomat’s wife as well as a working mother is not that easy. Says Thapa: “From the very beginning of our marriage, I made it quite clear that I did not want to waste my education. I must say that my husband respected by views and never interfered. In fact, I had moved to New Delhi because of my work even before my husband was posted here.”

If you’re still not convinced that there’s more to being a diplomat’s wife than manicured nails and knowing which glass goes with which wine, here’s what Rita Thapa has to say: “You could be looking very well turned out at a reception, but five minutes before being there, you could be smelling of garlic and ginger because don’t forget, most diplomats’ wives do their own cooking or at least supervise the kitchen.”

Then she brings you down another notches or two closer to reality. “I would fall dead if I went partying every day!” she says. “As I like to be in office by 7.30 a.m., I can only manage one party a week.” There’s one helluva independent woman, who drives her own car to work and “completely forgets home” when she’s in office, just as she leaves “thoughts of office the minute” she reaches home.

A juggling act, therefore, is a constant in the life of a working wife of a diplomat, but it seems to be doing good to their married life.

(Though there are also other diplomats’ working wives, for the interest of Nepalese readers only Nepali diplomats portion has been reproduced here.)

—Humra Quraishi