The Weekend

Weekends, especially Saturdays, are lazy days. After gruesome (!) weekdays of laborious (!) work schedule, Saturday always offers a pleasant morning, irrespective of the perennial despicable weather in the part of country I have chosen to make career. Like other evolutionary primates, I also tend to wake past the dawn. The Sun anyway is always on time for the duty. Being on leave, I prefer to let it earn its bread by burning itself and in the course of the process, my room-mate burns himself (I mean to say, the extra fat he acquires overnight, courtesy me, as a consequence of consuming a generous quantity of ghee over the protein rich - and ghastly tasteless - food) preparing the breakfast for us. Although it is not fixed, yet I prefer anything other than the horrible Maggie. How on earth can any living being eat those loathsome assortment of tasteless strings without any garnishing, is beyond the capabilities of comprehension for my poor dimwitted cerebrum. That digression notwithstanding, I survive with whatever he slips in for my consumption.

Last Saturday as he was not there, I had to personally look after the entire aforementioned proceedings. To my horror, the maid arrived before time and was very happy keeping the bell button depressed till the moment she could adore my face. Unwillingly I had to part off from my bed and let her in. For the umpteenth time she enquired about when my room-mate was returning. I wonder whether she is interested in the work or him! He is not that hapless, to be frank. She finished her job pronto, nevertheless making me hop from on place to other for the namesake of dusting, and departed. In the meanwhile, the newspaper and the milk pouch had been delivered. Still yawning, I picked the articles and provided them with their respective places of residence. As I had anyway been woken up, I avoided the sin of sagging back again in the bed. Ergo, I indulged myself in the newspaper. Lately, I have realized that newspapers can more aptly be rechristened as tabloids. Hindi newspapers have religiously maintained their forbidden status for the sensible citizens. A few English ones, self proclaimed as the throat and tongue of the nation, who had an erstwhile reputation of being diligent in putting words have now taken hypocrisy as their vision, mission and value. I perused through the 68 odd pages, 24 of which were classifieds (ironical usage of the print media for advertisement), 12 had full length portraits of dare-to-wear owlets, another 8 of the international news of absolutely no pertinence to my humble and benign existence and the rest 24 about the national news which, lest the dates of the calendar has to change, is notoriously the same. The entire activity took about 20 minutes. I suddenly felt a sense of achievement, being updated of the most current happenings of the world.

As I had to stew my own morsel, I rose from the bed again. Put the tea in the tea-jar and summoned all my energies to think about what to prepare to dispense with the upheaval at both the floor of my anatomy. After a long solitudinal brainstorming, I settled for Rave-Ka-Shira. Another ten minutes of hard work and I was again in my bed munching the moreish dish for the tongue, along with old editions of the ET, for skull. That's the only newspaper I am seduced to. It carries news; simply. With the mind and matter put to gratification and the Sun already passed over the head, I indulged into a siesta. Lately, I have discovered I have become rather indulgent. I now indulge in even in the least possible thing I had never even bothered to dream of. For example, nowadays I iron my clothes! When I enjoyed the lavishness of home, I regarded this to be a blasphemous, sordid or for that reason a squalid job.

Never mind that. Post-siesta, I found the clock lackadaisically hanging on at 17:30. As it was my duty to get up, for the sake of the crushed bedsheets and pressed mattresses, I did. Yawning all along the wall of my apartment, I filled the tea-jar again. While the tea was boiling, I put the milk container back on the gas. Milk, I tell you, is a entailing substance. It needs refrigeration, to save it from 'splitting'. Also, it needs to be boiled, again so that the darned thing doesn't split. Can't we make the holy animal, this is derivative of which, eat something gluey so that one can stave off the split hairs of boiling it time and again? I read somewhere about a group of Scandinavian vets who tweaked with the genes of the holy animal so that it can pour out 4 times the normal (now, what is that?) quantity of the fluid. I wonder whether these musketeers of anthropology have any concern for my recommendation. The tea was ready. I gulped it, few biscuits to savour with and couched in the bed again. It creaked. It was a signal perhaps, that I must let it enjoy the freedom too.

Taking the cue, I changed, and put my foot out. There was no particular place to go. I hence decided to indulge (again !) into a mindless stroll. The daily routine doesn't allow me to look at the edifices encroaching the barren spread all around my apartments. The stroll gave me ample opportunities to appreciate the engineering wizardry. I must say, people have invested sumptuously. Some villas truly justify their pompous names viz. the Castle. This one is built in an area of over 10,000 sq feet. The peripheral brickwork is a dozen feet tall, ornated with dreadful spikes and complimented with commensurate main entrance door. I was impressed, honestly. Karan Johar is not all insane. Such villas do exist. And yes of course, their were some other greener things, there that did attract my attention. Their attention, as always, was already been 'taken'. This is one more thing that makes me realize how godforsaken I am. The self realisation also led me to the ultimate reality of life: the ones of my age have either already been taken or about to be, those who are elder find me as a cute kid and the younger ones, the smarter race of course, have already chosen the better for them. As a consequence of this introspection (I honestly thank my management training for making me so comfortable with the use of this word, a courtesy daily hearing), enlightenment has struck upon me to be modest and accept solitude as the only solace rather than to strike up something with somebody. The loner, the better.

Tired and exasperated, I unlocked the home. I cooked myself a gourd (not because I am a gourmand, but only that was available) and rotis. Swallowed some water and collapsed in the bed, pronto. The day had been really tiring. Deep thought process (this is another word, I duly thank for) depletes the mind of the precious fluids that must be repleted by a cosy sleep amount to no less than third of a day. Following this precious advice from the doctor, I culminated my happening day.

This was Saturday, indeed. Sunday, of course, I spare for rest, exclusively.