Lords Of The House

THOMAS Sakran gets wicked pleasure out of informing visiting card-wielding cocktail-goers in Delhi that he's "just a bloody spouse". That's because he's grown sick of the disappointed looks and turned backs that follow his well-rehearsed response of- "I'm married to a Danish diplomat; I don't do anything"-to their predictable "What do you do?" query. His abrasive response wipes the I'm-about-to-be-bored expression from his interlocutor's face. But don't get it wrong. Sakran doesn't have an attitude problem. He believes his peers do. "At these receptions most people are looking for contacts-for them it's not interesting to talk to the spouse. They sometimes even call me Mr Tine (his wife's first name). They're expecting a man. So I like to shock them a bit."

Sakran is jobless. And loving it. He's part of a growing tribe of expatriate husbands in the diplomatic corps who're learning to follow their wives around the world, whose lives for brief as well as extended periods are dictated by the profession of their wives. And not the other way round.

Admittedly, it takes time getting used to. For the first couple of months after arriving in New Delhi, having just quit his old job, Sakran's newly-found freedom sat strangely on his 30-year-old shoulders. Now he wouldn't have it any other way-at least for a few years. "I play golf every morning and then sometimes I explore the nooks and crannies, the markets of old Delhi-I drive myself and spend my wife's money happily." Beyond driving his wife to work, checking the refrigerator for food stocks and ordering the meal for the day, Sakran's free, and taking advantage of such freedom. His wife Tine Lyngholm is fully supportive of his choice and finds herself frustrated with the lack of understanding from Indians as also the westerners she meets. "I'm happy with the arrangement, and I'm glad that my husband has got a break after so long," she says.

But there are other male spouses for whom this freedom is nothing without the responsibility they heap upon themselves. And the Cuban ambassador's husband Moises Vega Cruz is exceptionally responsible... He changes lightbulbs in the office and has cooked meals for up to a hundred people at a time. Free to leave the office at 5 pm, because Cuban law provides him with a job at the embassy, he waits until the 'boss'-as he calls his wife, Olga Chamero Trias-is finished. This could be 10 pm or later.

He has tirelessly followed her from posting to posting. He carried her briefcase in Burma when she lacked a secretary and had a meeting with a Burmese minister; at another time he fixed a leaky tap in the ambassador's residence. He wakes his ambassador wife every morning to especially-blended coffee made by Cruz's loving hands. "I like to feel needed, and wherever we've gone for holiday or work, I always carry with me the special coffeemaker as well as the coffee," the 56-year-old enthuses. No one else is allowed the honour-whether it's on holiday in France or Finland. He followed Trias to Sri Lanka where she was posted as ambassador and welcomed the egalitarian nature and the ease with which Lankans-from the cleaners to the diplomats-accepted him.

Is he embarrassed about his chosen role? No way; most of his hard work is self-imposed. An ex-army man, the sense of duty and an early start to the day-5.30 am-come naturally. "I take care of all the e-mail and faxes, and make a package each morning for my wife of the important stories she should look at before her day begins." Is the work a result of the guilt that he's not the breadwinner? Not at all, he says, laughing. "My wife gets very good support from me-of course she deserves it, she is a very special person."

But not all understand or sympathise with such male spouses. Reactions are anything but neutral. They're ignored, jeered at, sometimes even secretly envied. Most of them, however, don't give a hoot-they're too busy having a good time. "I love being here. It's a chance to see India and I hate the way so many diplomats' wives come here and complain about this or that. If they don't like it, why don't they just go home?" asks a frustrated Sakran. "Certainly," says an observer of this new trend, "the male non-working diplomatic spouse puts to shame some of the female diplomatic spouses, posted to New Delhi."

When he first arrived, Sakran joined a group of expat spouses (comprising mostly women) who met regularly, but soon dropped out after being constantly singled out amongst the sea of feminine faces. "There was me and another guy and although it might have been a good way of meeting people, I didn't enjoy the way such a big deal was made about our being there." He has since then found other ways of meeting people. Mainly through sports. "There's no sense in being guilty about enjoying myself-this is just temporary; after a couple of years I'll get a job again."

As of now, the only duty he commits himself to is taking house guests to the regular tourist spots: he's already been five times to the Taj, four times to Jaipur. "I don't mind," he says, shrugging. But too many people his wife knows do. "Although they never think it's illegitimate if a woman comes to India and does nothing," Lyngholm says, irritated. "It's such double standards."

But these standards have deeper institutionalised roots in an old-fashioned international diplomatic set-up. Take the Swiss system, for instance. Andrea Rauber, attache in the Swiss embassy, and her husband Beat Saxer, who'd like to find a job in New Delhi, complain that most information and application forms in Switzerland pertaining to diplomatic postings overseas refer to the "wife of the diplomat", assuming there could be no female diplomat and no house-husband. "They just don't cater for an accompanying non-working male spouse," says Rauber. "What I realise more and more is that this diplomatic lifestyle is still intended for a classical couple-with my own (male) colleagues at work I see they're free of the additional stress of having a spouse who's looking for a new job." Beat Saxer points frustratingly to a pile of books he has collected since arriving in Delhi which refer to different spouse groups that exist in Delhi-but all put together by women. For women. Although there are no special diplomatic male-spouse groups in New Delhi, Saxer has managed to meet people through occasional business he does for a Swiss firm over the Net, and through his riding club.

In fact, expat men left to their own devices have developed ingenious ways of making friends. Philip De Waal, married to Judith Slater, press attache in the British High Commission, has formed a whole network of friends around the core group of students of the prestigious British mba he's studying for. "I'm so glad I don't have to get dressed every morning in office clothes," he says as he pads around in T-shirt and shorts. Until recently De Waal was a Delhi-based diplomat, but gave it up for studying, sports and barbecues.

Call it la dolce vita, but he for one is certainly not complaining.