“I don’t do mornings” – that’s a tshirt I am going to be asked to get cremated in.
I DON’T DO MORNINGS -I want to shout it out from the top of my terrace and let the whole town know.
I don’t do mornings – I want to put that up as the work IM status message. The sign off for my email. The tagline for my bumble bio. My WhatsApp status.
Hell, I want to change my name to it. But I can’t. Can I ?No. I can’t. I’m cursed with the Indian middleclass mental preset programming.
Only lazy people don’t do mornings. Only those who have a “bad” lifestyle don’t do mornings. Only the spoilt and coddled don’t do mornings.
And so, here I am. Curtains pulled apart, fan off, a 40 degrees in March, as a timid Shilpa tiptoes her way around my room dusting and sweeping as I pretend to be asleep, on my tummy, guilt pouring in with the first ounces of consciousness and a hundred thoughts of what all meetings could I have missed today in my slumber, just to realise I was unemployed. For now.
Its 1pm. Like a scratchy, out of tune radio catching vividh bharti in full volume, suddenly comes to life, my fresh new day starts with the modernized sabjiwala honking away in his green van, the rag pickers shouting their throats out for some left over food, the stray dogs barking, a full blown Gujarati swear word loaded mother in law daughter in law battle going on in the next window, kids creating a ruckus playing something, the stray cows mooing and belching and a couple of pigeons in love going at it violently in my window. Ugh.
I’m kind of waiting for Shilpa to be done with her stuff so I don’t have to socialize first thing in the morning.
But she’s taking her time. Finding corners to wipe that I did not realise existed and moving the smallest objects on the floor to sweep under. If there was an award for finding and destroying dust she would be a world champion.
I keep my eyes tight shut. My bladder and my hatred for small talks battling it out like the mother-in-law daughter-in-law outside. Only my internal mechanisms swore in English.
And I lay there. With all the noises, the stench of an overflown gutter from the night, the fragrance of phenyl and a bundle of energy bustling around in my room.
Slowly processing the realities that had brought me here.
I was an unmarried female. I was 33. I was unemployed. The prime minister had just announced a complete lockdown. I was “living” in my mom’s house after almost two decades.
And on the other side of the door were three women, from three different decades who were going to be my housemates for the next …. God only knows how many weeks.
The dangerous cacophony emanating from the window was Rahman’s music compared to what lay beyond that closed door.
Finally the fan turned on. The curtains remained open. Instructions from beyond probably to wake the monster had been given to the timid Shilpa. Who probably chose light over sweat and let me have the fan. God bless her soul.“Nikita didi” she said. Softly. I could hear the quiver in her voice. I must have scared the poor girl sometime in the past one week by my daytime grumpiness.
I managed to fake an awakening yawn, and turned, sending shivers down her spine I am guessing as she quickly ran to the door and closed it behind her.
I felt like the village monster.
But safe from the prospect of a human interaction so early in the day with my groggy mind and blaspheming bladder, I sat up, opened my eyes and got my phone.
That one space of sanity in this mad World that I had chosen.
And just then the door opened.“
Is this the time that good women wake up?” my grandmother was framed in the door. Frail at a forty kg and 90 years, her voice didn’t match her body.
“Ssh…mom, let her sleep. Didn’t I tell you not to bother her?” my mom rushed into the frame. Mortified.
I love my mom. I hate her mom.
The door closed. I didn’t react. I stared at my reflection in the mirror that someone had thoughtlessly put right across my bed. Or maybe because this room wasn’t meant to be a room. I was living in a store room.
I stared at the reflection and smiled. My sister had given me the solution to my daily dose of grief. I guess she got me. The tshirt said it all.“I don’t do mornings.”
*Written as part of Write Club Bangalore’s session today.
Dreams Unlimited 