<b>Kishore Singh:</b> When life gives you no escape

After a year of making workaholic excuses, I knew I needed to find a way of getting back to mainstream life. The epiphany occurred late one night when I took a measure of my day and found it wanting. Sipping champagne at someone else's expense might appear glamorous, but the hours I was putting in at work were grinding. When everyone else was spending their evenings chatting with friends, hoisting themselves off to the movies and getting together at trendy restaurants, I was passing out in front of the TV, ordering takeaway because the cook refused to stay up past midnight to serve dinner.

Hoping to bring changes one small step at a time, on Monday, I insisted on taking the dog for a walk, but the pooch wasn't in the mood to accompany me post his constitutional. As a result, I found myself back almost before I'd started. Therefore, I decided to run errands from our first floor apartment to the ground floor, much to the dismay of our domestic staff who were used to taking every opportunity to sneak out. I went down to pick up the newspapers and jogged back up; I went down again to fetch the milk and climbed slowly back; I paced down once more to give the car keys to the car cleaner, then crawled back up after asking him to deliver the keys upstairs once he was done; but there was still the garbage to be taken down, and by the time I resurfaced, I had a stitch in my side so painful it hurt when I talked.

So, on Tuesday, I decided, I needed a hobby - and reading in bed didn't count. A suggestion that I rustle up a meal was quickly squashed by my children who rebelled at some long-ago memory of a failed attempt; my wife threatened to leave home; the cook collapsed into tears thinking her job was at risk; and the cleaning lady refused to wash up after my mess.

But, there was still my wife's garden where I hoped not to annoy anybody and do some repotting, but it was back-breaking hard work that hurt so bad, I guessed, I wasn't the hobby type and reverted to reading instead.

On Wednesday, I thought to put my papers in order and pulled out the files in the study to find that the dog's shots were overdue, the life insurance policy hadn't been renewed, the medical insurance file was missing, several funds had lapsed, I was still paying EMIs on a car loan that should have been foreclosed, the tenants had reneged on their payments, and the driver's advance had grown enormously. To make it worse, everyone now expected me to clear their mobile phone and credit card bills because I was sitting around sorting through "useless stuff". It was all so dismaying that I stuffed everything back into a drawer hoping it would take care of itself.

By Thursday, I knew what I had to do - spend more time with my ageing parents. "I'm coming home to care for you," I announced to my mother on Friday, who promptly said, "I'm sorry but the guest room is currently occupied by your aunt." In short order, thereafter, it had been allotted to my sister, my other aunt, a niece, the niece's husband, my son (my son!), a friend and another friend. "But, I can spare it for a week in December," my mother suggested.

I guess there's no escape from drinking champagne at someone else's expense anytime soon.