Emerging from the shower, I got the shock of my life when a young person from whose general demeanour it appeared he had spent the night in our apartment, said cheerfully, “Morning uncle, how does one get a cup of tea around here?” Every summer, like migratory birds, strangers arrive at our doorstep — to stay, shop, dine and make way for others in the queue — but they are usually properly introduced to us before they snap open their suitcases and ask for the room service menu. But here was someone I hadn’t set my eyes on before, so it was with not a little ill-will that I poured him a cup of Earl Grey and pointed to the bin of digestive biscuits, which disappeared before he could tell me his name.
By the time I’d sat down for breakfast, the denizens of the household had begun to emerge quite literally from the woodwork, snapping on their iPods, connecting their laptops, demanding coffee-towels-toast-newspapers-the television remote-shampoo-slippers-Disprin for a hangover-soap-spare toothbrush-masala chai… I’m not sure I could correctly name every one of them, or tell whether they were family, or children’s friends, or in-laws, only that there seemed to be more of them than there had been when we went to sleep.
Nor could I correctly identify who was in Delhi for what — one cousin might have been here for admissions, another was passing through but had thought to bring along a couple of his friends, my mother-in-law was pursuing a permanent residency, the children occasionally had their friends over for sleepovers, other relatives were threatening to come at the start of college season, a young intern who knew no one else in the city had no choice but to camp with us, my brother-in-law was threatening to stay for a week, a couple of provincials wanted to live it up in the big city so here they were at our threshold, and somebody had an international flight to catch for which, playing it really safe, she’d come not a few hours but a few days early.
If having them stay wasn’t enough, their days — and their lives — needed managing. They wanted air bookings and railway berths (because it suggested imminent departures, we were happy to oblige), and company when they went out shopping, and to sample the city’s hipper restaurants (though they sometimes omitted to pay the bills), and to have us make them cocktails they hadn’t tasted before (though they failed to buy the liquor) and to order DVDs to watch films late into the night (so we got no sleep while they, of course, slept late into the day).
We tripped over shoes that they trailed all over the floors, did mountains of washing, piled up mattresses and sheets in a corner, stuffed the fridge with bottles of water to cool, ordered cases of beer and loaves of bread, and catered to whims we would never have tolerated in our own children. The cousins rejected the fried eggs if the yolk split, my mother-in-law threw a tantrum if she thought her mango shake had been forgotten in the general melee, the chap I had failed to recognise grumbled that his cold coffee wasn’t cold enough.
They borrowed our books and our cars, lolled on our bed, let the hair conditioner drip, used up all our deodorants, left damp towels on the cushions, demanded endless glasses of nimbu paani, complained about the lack of space — and privacy — in our apartment, and left without tipping the servants. With a month to go before vacations end, and the next batch of guests ready to move in, it’s going to be a long summer, indeed.