Kishore Singh: Just another manic Sunday

PEOPLE LIKE US

I imagine Sundays as one day one can sleep late, wake up to a pile of newspapers leisurely read, a lazy breakfast, a bath at noon, something interesting by way of lunch, an afternoon snooze, burying oneself in the pages of a thriller, friends getting together in the evening for a drink, perhaps dinner at a nice restaurant somewhere close by.

"You have to get up early," instead, says my wife, "my best friend Sarla's other best friend is coming over for a cup of tea," which, on a Sunday morning is the cruellest thing you can say to someone who's been waking up the kids at the crack of dawn six days a week to pack them off to school. "Can't she come some other day when it isn't a holiday?"

I protest. "She's coming because it is a holiday," my wife points out, all dressed and ready in her working clothes because, clearly, Sunday is her Monday, the day she's busiest, meeting clients and palming off copied designs in beads and baubles as her own work.

I groan, shower, change, and am barely ready before Mona accompanied by her daughter are at the front door waiting to be shown in. "Breakfast?" I whisper to my wife, the one day I expect to be served an interesting variation from burnt toast and Marmite. "Later," she hisses, "not now, can't you see I'm busy."

The kids, realising there's no hope for parathas sizzling hot off the tawa, head for their friends' home, secure that they'll be asked to join them for breakfast. "Can I switch on the TV?" I ask my wife, "I'll keep the volume low." "No ji," she says sweetly, "it'll spoil my concentration. Now stop fidgeting and sit still."

I pick up a current affairs magazine to leaf through, hoping Mona & Co will soon be gone. "Fetch me a mirror," says my wife, "and switch on the lights, will you? Draw the curtains back. Why are you sitting around when there's so much work to be done?" The doorbell rings. Some neighbours have dropped in to see if there's anything new and, yes, they'd love a glass of juice if it's fresh.

The phone rings. The sister of the spouse of a friend wants to bring her daughter-in-law over if it's convenient? "Of course," says my wife, "most welcome." The sister and the spouse decide to come as well. Then Sarla drops in. She says Padma's coming too, with a niece, they'll only stay an hour and they're serious buyers too. "Most welcome," says my wife again.

Padma brings along another friend who wants what Padma has, only Mona had already kept it aside. "Coffee?" asks my wife sweetly, "will you organise it Sweety," she tells me. Sweety is irritated and hungry, half Sunday is over, and there's more people in the living room than it was built to hold. "What're we going to have for lunch?" I take my wife aside. "There are leftovers in the fridge," she says.

By the time everyone has left and the leftovers have been heated, it's evening, but the day isn't over for some as yet. Bela, the one whose daughter is getting married, simply must come over. She brings along her sister-in-law too whose two daughters accompany her to help their cousin decide what she must wear.

"I hope we can at least have a hot meal for dinner," I complain to my wife. "Make yourself a sandwich," she says impatiently, "because after Bela leaves, Mona's coming back, she wants to change something she bought in the morning but doesn't think she likes any more, and so Padma's coming back too in case she likes what Mona didn't." Thankfully, Monday's only a few hours away.