Thank God, it’s Thursday

No hurried dressing-up, no scurrying for the first and best ones of the uttapams and idlis, no 8:50 or 8:55 or 9 o’clock bus to catch.

Thank God, it’s Thursday.

The clock ticks away, mobile phones cry out ‘alarm’-ingly in monophonic and polyphonic tones, reminding their masters of commitments and deadlines – MRM presentations, Visual Communication assignment, Photoshop paths and layers. Yawn!

Sometime close to noon, a head creeps out of floral prints and dishevelled hair. Throwing my pretty blanket aside, I sit up with a shock. Damn, missed breakfast again. This happens every Thursday. I turn to my right, Susy kutty is fast asleep. Is she snoring? To my left, Sammy Whammy lies on her bed like a defeated warrior. Cool, I’m the first one to wake up.

As I move about the place ‘noiselessly’, the other two heads pop out of blanketed enclosures. In a matter of a few minutes, everyone is on their feet, going about their respective chores. What follows is a series of logical and rational reasoning, in an attempt to find solutions. ‘How can they shut the mess room by 9.30? Breakfast should go on till 11, maybe even 12’, ‘They should provide bed-tea-breakfast’, ‘Maybe we should talk to Colonel?’ Absolutely pragmatic ideas and suggestions. We marvel at our own ingenuity. One leads to another. Not on a hungry stomach though, thanks to the abundant supply of cookies and chips and cakes in our room. Ya, ya, we come from ‘khaate peete khandaan’. We totally look the part. No denying that.

As Kishore Kumar and Abba and Sean Paul conduct a hopeless symphony in the background, we turn into ‘homemaker’ mode. Swinging and lip-syncing to the tunes of our respective idols, we go about our household chores – directing the cleaning lady not to miss that little corner there, instructing the laundry woman to handle the clothes delicately. At the end of the exercise, we look at the outcome proudly. We’ll make great home managers in the future.

Lunch time, and yes, we’re on time for that. After all, one can’t survive on snacks and savouries the whole day. Over roti, dal and curry, we discuss the politically volatile situation in the major cities of our country. ‘After all, FOOTPRINTS and CAMPUS OLYMPICS are team efforts’, ‘How can s/he behave like a dictator?’ We end our conference with a mention about the virtues of ‘people skills and collective responsibility’ and affirming the importance of event management. Yeah, way to go!

Back into our clean rooms, we decide to now utilise the time in a more productive manner. Settled on our respective beds with a book in hand, we turn the pages of history. Quite unconsciously, siesta takes us into the world of fact-based fiction – we roam through the streets of Lappierre’s City of Joy, swim through the waters of the Meenachal in Roy’s God of Small Things and ponder upon Desai’s (The) Better Man. Overcome by ‘intensity and purpose’, we decide to replace these novels with less-novel creations like Mass Communication In India or the like by you-know-who!!!

An unusually long period of ‘intensity and purpose’ puts us in philosophical mode. We ‘communicate’ in profound terms and discuss the vagaries of the male psyche. The study of mass communication has led us to dissect and critically analyze the words and thoughts of the ‘men in our lives’. Brooding over our unrealised/unfulfilled/uninteresting love lives, we sink into deeper thought at the cost of the peril of God knows who.

Dinner is followed by good night calls and long-distance kisses. What would we do without such doting families? Yet another day passes. Rather uneventful, just the way I like it. Thank God, it was a Thursday.

Chai, biscuit and heart-shaped moth balls

Well, that’s not quite an appetizing title. On the contrary, that might just put you off food. But pardon me. That was the least of my intentions.

I am not suggesting here, a case of food-adulteration or anything of the sort that one hears from hostel friends. (God save you, if you find your tea smelling of naphthalene!) Chai, biscuit and the moth/naphthalene balls are simply three independent yet related themes in my life currently.
After having spent almost a month lazing at home post-*TYBMM, I got a much awaited opportunity to work for a month until college began. Well, since the job profile was suited to my interest areas, I was more than glad. Added to this the fact that, in my present state of bankruptcy (and anticipated expenditures!), any remuneration is welcome. And well, luckily I was promised a more than decent pay-check. Without diverting any more from the topic, let’s start with the chai…

So, I leave home for work at around eight in the morning. The wait for the bus and the ride to office leave me sweating and hurrying to get into the air-conditioned comfort of my office. Phew! From Sahara to Antarctica (that’s how my sister puts it… Oh yeah, my kid sister also works with me.) A few minutes into work, I start feeling cold. In fact, so cold that I am forced to wrap a stole around myself. As one senior colleague put it, there’s a “BLUESTAR” kinda problem with the office air-conditioning which needs to be fixed. Added to this the fact that I have low-tolerance for cold—I complain about the ‘winter’ in Mumbai!!! So well, the end result is that I soon feel sleepy because I’m cold and snug, and yeah, the work is also quite monotonous. Therefore, the next plan of action is to get my a** up and make some hot piping chai that’ll keep me wide-awake and warm too.

During the initial days at work, I wouldn’t even consider drinking tea, because well, I’m not a tea/coffee drinker. I have often received wide-mouthed reactions to the above statement. Being a “South Indian” how can I deprive myself of my ‘birth-right’ to excellent tea/coffee?! Yeah, whatever! So the first few days, upon feeling drowsy, I would go into the pantry and pour myself a cold glass of TANG instead. Ahem! I realized soon enough that TANG did not solve my ‘sleepiness/coldness’ issues. In fact, it just added to the ‘chill’. I ended up visiting the ladies room more. So, in the end I had to succumb to the chai. Now two cups of very strong chai everyday, ensure I remain awake.

Biscuits are a must-accompaniment with chai almost everywhere. That’s the case at work too. All are free to help themselves to an assortment of biscuits kept in the pantry. But the Good-Days and Bourbons and Milk-Bikis have never quite fancied me. Since time immemorial, I can remember our Mom complaining about how spoilt we brats were and so unlike all the other children in the world. After all, who does not like biscuits? But well, we liked only noodles and fries and oily/tasty, spicy, roasted stuff. Sigh! But when one has access to nothing but biscuits, what to do? Today, biscuits are an integral part of my diet. Gulp!

So, what role do the heart-shaped moth balls play? Well, nothing really. Lately, we have found that the moth balls being used in the wash basins and elsewhere in the office are tiny heart-shaped ones. A colleague expressed her shock thus: “Who in the world would think of making moth balls (of all things) in this shape?”

Sigh! I wonder what those manufacturers had in mind while conceptualising this unique idea.



(*TYBMM-Third Year Bachelor of Mass Media, University of Mumbai.)