<b>Kishore Singh:</b> A 'hobby-filled' day

My wife has been in between hobbies for as long as I can remember. Which means she can decide, on waking up, to nominate herself chef du jour. This allows the cook to sulk because his kitchen is about to be invaded, the kids know they won't get breakfast because their mother has decided to make whole-wheat zucchini muffins which she'll abandon midway to clean out the fridge, or do an inventory of her spices and sauces, or argue with her sister about some dessert they tasted as little girls, "So why can't you remember the ingredients right away?" Her stream of consciousness association with cooking means she'll want to pull things out of her cupboard "urgently", which might lead to searching for the one white shirt amidst several dozens that seem to have gone missing. All hands are then inveigled into looking for the absent garment while the muffins burn, there's no hope of a cup of coffee, and the children know they'll have to order dinner from some neighbourhood takeaway.

Or she might decide that she isn't reading enough, and you can't fault my wife for her lack of zealousness. Her reading tastes proving eclectic, she'll want all of the previous week's newspapers, which must be ironed and stacked by her bedside. She also derives comfort from the hundreds of magazines and catalogues to which we subscribe that form piles on the bed. And she'll surround herself with books that she had started reading but never quite finished, new purchases, library issues and those borrowed from friends long ago and not yet returned. The laptop will be connected to an online dictionary because she'll want to know the exact meanings of words, and we'll be subjected to cruel quizzes to show up our ignorance about the exact translation of "exegesis". Or she might get into a long-distance squabble with her brother because he failed to communicate the exact nuance of a phrase she'd asked him about as a teenager.

There are other diversions she picks up: yoga one week, film studies the next. What she's taken to most recently is gardening, frightening the maali into serving notice as she's set to mulching and composting. She returned from Jaipur one night with a bag full of cuttings and seedling that she set to potting immediately. Since she doesn't believe in half measures, we've put up two large nurseries where, daily, hundreds of plants are talked into sprouting and flowering. In a madly disorienting fashion, baby mandarins have been placed in the same bed as asters and lilies, adeniums share pots, seleniums and philodendrons are tubmates. Fertiliser sacks, planters and watering cans line the living room. The house staff has been trained to rush all plants into the open at any hint of passing showers. Orchids and anthuriums have made a home in our bedroom to escape the heat. Armed with her shears, insecticides and other gardening weaponry, my wife makes a scary sight.

Impulsive at best, this Sunday she has decided to host a book-reading in her garden, which she plans to cater herself. She's told her friends that she's excited about having a single platform for all her interests. But it's got the rest of us nervous about what to expect. Will we find a rack of bestsellers in the fridge? Is the parsley for the salad or for planting? Will the meal be ready to serve or should we provide for a Plan B? Will her friends survive her hobbies? More importantly, will we?