Because my son said he was unable to study in Pune — the city was “too hot”, he said, his friends had gone home, and he was bored anyway — he asked permission to come to Delhi, which was all right, except he seems to spend his days biking with his uncle, and his evenings catching up with his friends. To make sure that he does not lose critical study time, I’ve been photocopying his notes, putting his course books in order, highlighting case histories and marking sections that I think are important for his exams.
Because my daughter too should be preparing for her papers, which are some time later this month, but because she and her friends seem to spend all their time at the cinema and in malls, or chatting on the laptop, I’ve decided to give her an edge in the subjects she can’t be bothered to read, having announced that she won’t worry about them till a day before she has to appear for the tests. So I’ve been coordinating tutors for accounts, checking for statistics notes on the net, and cracking the economics syllabus, which she doesn’t understand at all. Not that I do either, but if I can reduce the course to a few salient points, she has an outside chance of at least attempting the questions she might otherwise have ignored.
Because my sister, who is a teacher in Ahmedabad and is winding up a year-long workshop with a PowerPoint presentation she should have made some months ago, but which she complained she didn’t really want to do, besides what was the point of having a brother who is writer if he couldn’t string together some words, and so has passed the buck on to me. I’ve read up her workshop notes, done a SWOT analysis on teaching trends, read up on management jargon, and written copious documents on behaviourial science, to which she said, oh well, she’d try and make do with what she had seeing she didn’t have much choice anyway.
Because my mother-in-law, who is meek in her other son-in-law’s home, and can hardly get in a word edgeways in her sons’ homes, has the run of our house, she laid down the rules about the times she wants her meals, and when she needs rest — “nobody must talk in any room when I am sleeping,” she commanded, “and all phones must be switched off”. And so, to make sure the servants are not put off, I serve her the almost-raw egg she wants for breakfast, and plan out her menus, and draw the curtains in her bedroom, and ensure her daughter does not lose her temper because her mother is throwing her weight around.
Because her daughter, who is my wife, is upset that she runs a business from home with almost no help, I agreed to pitch in, which wasn’t a smart thing to do because it means I’m her inventory manager, administration flunky, accountant, and general dogsbody who seems to spend a couple of hours every day looking for her misplaced car keys, safe keys and cupboard keys. “You’re never around when I need you,” she’s taken to saying, every time I have to leave for work, as a result I do overtime in the mornings and evenings, and haven’t managed more than a couple of hours’ sleep on most nights, which must be why colleagues say I look like a zombie in office.
Because of which I’m ready to take a break, but my son would get low grades, my daughter might fail, my sister could lose her job, my mother-in-law might shout at the servants who would then leave, or my wife might have a breakdown — so I suppose I’ll gamely soldier on.
