Ball number four was green and represented Joshna’s Kids. Work and Husband (purple and red) appeared
to dance between her hands, but Kids always stayed suspended mid-air. The balls never came down, never
stopped moving as Joshna made her way through her day. Such was her magic.
Others doubted her ability to keep the frantic pace of her juggling. She was a lawyer, after all, and Work
could be many smaller balls of Client 1, 2, 3, Boss 1, colleague 1, and 2. She never seemed to drop those
rock-hard marbles, even on weekends when Kids and Husband needed more attention.
Sometimes Husband would stray, and oh, how she leaped to reach for it, to cycle it back in her routine,
while Kids stayed high and dry out of the fray. Never knowing how close Husband was to falling,
how it would have sent their world tottering.
Once, Kids had been three tiny balls: Dev, Asha, and Chandra. All clamoured for attention while they
each threatened to slip through her fingers. She juggled them through nappies, dietary changes,
tuba lessons, dance recitals, school exams, and graduations. Yet neither gravity nor Joshna’s sleight of
hand allowed Kids to fail.
Some said Husband kept that Kids ball aloft as she was busy with Work. Others said it was merely three
Adult balloons that Joshna filled with all her hot air. Kids don’t need juggling, she needed to cut her
apron strings and let them fly free. But Kids still lived with her. Kids needed jobs. Joshna needed to
keep them bouncing along, keep handling their affairs, and keep them in perpetual orbit around her.
Some shook their heads in silence, for how could a woman juggle all those balls and still add a
brilliant pink Hobby into the mix. Some said it’s possibly more than one Hobby, seeing how large it was,
while others cheekily suggest it’s a Lover. Her days were too packed. She was bound to crack, they said.
But that’s how they saw Joshna, standing tip-toe on a High Horse high up on Cloud Nine with her posh
ways and posher lifestyle, juggling Husband, Work, Kids/Adults, and Hobby/Lover without dropping
any of them.
How they yearned to knock her down a peg. Slap that High Horse on its rump to get it to buck and
throw her down back to their level.
Would they even know how she measured each breath to keep her from becoming unbalanced?
Did they see how the centripetal forces of Work and Husband kept that precious green ball, Kids,
from falling? Could they consider how her Hobby kept her centred even though the horse she
stood on kept her separated from others?
Joshna needed that separation. She feared others would come closer and see it was not Cloud Nine
she was living on but a mere Bubble: soapy, delicate, and transparent. That, once popped, would send
them all careening down to Earth. And that, she knew, must never ever happen so she kept
juggling and juggling and juggling.
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