Kishore Singh: Spring-cleaning in autumn

On Wednesday night my wife announced that we were to join the PM's call for spring-cleaning the nation by immediately getting rid of the detritus in our lives. Because dinner was held up till we complied with her instructions, we had no choice but to join hands to complete the task, and soon the balcony was filled with beer and whisky empties (from my son's bathroom, deposited there by his friends after they had first cleaned out my bar), and piles of slightly used shoes and clothes that seemed still new but which my daughter was no longer partial to (and which my wife spent the better part of the night trying on for size). The staff brought down cartons of "useless" stuff that they alleged I had been saving up over the years, and which had been piling up in their quarters. My wife's contribution was a roomful of lipsticks and lotions long past their use-by date. It would have been a heroic cleanout but on Thursday morning, either because the raddiwallahs were observing a holiday while the rest of the nation did their work, or they were hard put to keep up with their new-found fame, we could find no one to carry away the junk.

In any case, my wife had decided that the kitchen, too, needed cleaning. The fridge was aired out, the drawers emptied, shelves wiped clean, cupboards ventilated. Mismatched crockery, cutlery and glassware joined the unclaimed heap on the balcony, but my wife is anything if not distracted, tending to leave her things at the handiest spot. Her mobile phone was rescued from the refrigerator when it rang, her watch turned up in the spice shelf, the chocolates we'd been hoarding melted on the cooking range, and much lamenting followed because a hoard of cheese we'd been saving for a special occasion was found to have been feasted on by a family of mice. Because we could no longer find bread, butter or eggs, we wound up ordering breakfast from outside.

A quick search of my son's cupboards yielded large containers of suspicious protein shakes and powders that were junked by his mother for containing steroids. My daughter's zeal to continue cleaning out her wardrobe was matched by her enthusiasm for ordering their replacements online for which she asked to "borrow" my credit card. My wife's shoes, meanwhile, turned up in the linen basket, we found her purse in the fridge at the same time as her phone, and the safe turned out not to have any money but a jar of pickles. We're still searching for the "absolutely secure" spot where she's hidden her money.

By the evening, I'd made a couple of trips by car to the neighbourhood dump without ridding much of the clutter that had accumulated on the balcony. It would take more than just me to cart it off, so I did the only thing that was sensible - I smuggled everything back into the house, hiding it in cupboards and chests, and bribing the staff to keep quiet till at least as long as it took someone to wonder what chipped glasses were doing in the medicine chest.

And, oh, I found the bread and eggs, which someone had thought to put away in the washing machine. No wonder the family's dirty briefs turned up in the microwave. Now, if only I can find where someone's put away the bottle of wine I was cooling - all this cleaning up has got me thirstier than usual.