Monday, February 23, 2009

Thank God it’s Monday

Oh yes you heard me right. Thank God it’s Monday.

From time immemorial Monday has always been considered the worst day of the week; the day the alarm didn’t go off (most probably because you were too drunk the previous night and forgot to set it), you woke up with a terrible hangover, you missed the bus, didn’t complete the assignment/project which was already due the previous Thursday and your principal/boss summoned you to his/her office for a “little chat”, you forgot it was your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse’s birthday, and a million other “bad” things.

For once, why don’t we give Monday a break? Remove its “Worst Day of the Week” tag? Give it a breathing space and let it express for once its natural beauty and allure? Why don’t we discover the beauty that’s trapped inside the mask we have created, that hideous ugly mask that we are unable to look beneath? If you take the time to slowly peel off that mask and examine Monday closely, I’m sure you will agree with me when I say “TGIM!!”

Having lived through thousands of Mondays and Fridays, let me tell you why I personally believe Monday should be the new Friday. You wake up refreshed after two days of rest and relaxation. The body is energetic because it got plenty of rest (read sleep) and the mind is alert because the bad memories of the previous week are gone; there is a new enthusiasm and belief that the coming week will only work out for the better. You wake up in the morning and the sun is shining and the birds are singing (Ok maybe you haven’t seen birds in a long time but for argument’s sake let’s say they are singing) and are filled with such zest, such passion for life that you vow to conquer the world (which of course never happens) and jump up from the bed, all the while humming your favourite tune. You think of the weekend gone by and smile a secret smile. You eat your food and get dressed for work/school. Clothes don’t match? No problemo, it’s a new day, a new week, there is a world to conquer out there, clothes hardly matter. Missed the bus? Wait for another one. Deadline not met? Why, there’s the rest of the week to finish it in. Sulky boss? Give him/her 32 of the brightest and shiniest and he/she will immediately recover and ask you for lessons in “Zen and the Art of Shiny White Teeth.” A boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse who’s hopping mad because you forgot something? Fake amnesia.

Mondays aren’t too bad if you compare them with Wednesdays. By the time Wednesday rolled around, you have done so much damage that you will never get promoted the rest of your natural life, and there are still three working days ahead. God knows how much more damage you will inflict. You pray for an earthquake to completely shatter your office and reduce everything to rubble, but no such luck. You look up all the tricks in the book and tried to get sick but there you are on Wednesday morning, strong as a horse. You hope that your boss will suddenly have some urgent work that requires him/her to travel for weeks and months but he/she is there, waiting to welcome you with not-so-open arms. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse has not yet forgiven you and is not speaking. And so on.

But life goes on; and if Wednesday comes, can Monday be far behind?

Have a great week.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Honey I burned the wall paper

Not wallpaper as in wallpaper, but the newspaper which I’d taped on the kitchen wall behind the cooking stove which is meant to absorb oil and water and food particles that splatter while cooking. It is quite effective, really, after a couple of weeks when the paper gets all oily and messy you simply remove it and put up a fresh page and presto! your wall is protected, you don’t have to spend time scrubbing out dirt, and the paper is easy to replace; clearly a win-all situation .

My niece who was visiting from Coimbatore asked me if lunch was ready, and like any good aunt I said yes, heat up the leftovers and it’s ready to eat. So she went, heated up the stuff, and came out from the kitchen with her plate and a question in her mind:

“Did you add anything to the fried potatoes which I made yesterday? It is all slimy and tastes funny”

“No, I didn’t touch it at all.”

“It sure is slimy.”

“Let me take a look.”

She came over to where I was sitting and I inspected the dish. Yes, it was indeed slimy. And tasted funny. Definitely spoiled.

“Throw it all away. I will make you an egg curry, go heat some oil.”

She did so and I resumed what I was doing. It was ten minutes later when called out from the bedroom.

“Anite, can I eat now?”

Oh my God.

I jumped up and rushed to the kitchen. The oil was on fire! Large flames, mind you, not your average everyday kitchen fire. And the wall paper had caught the fire and was getting along nicely, like a house on fire. For a second I panicked. My first thought was – if the fire spreads the whole building will be on fire and I’d be held responsible.

Then emergency instructions rushed into my head. Never pour water on burning oil. Cut off the oxygen supply. I switched off the stove and covered the frying pan with a plate. The plate was a small one and couldn’t fully cover the pan, and flames were still coming out from the corners which it couldn’t cover. I grabbed the kitchen towel and threw it over the pan. Then I removed my slippers and started hitting the burning wall paper which luckily didn’t offer any resistance and went out quietly.

Once the fire died I was immediately aware of the smoke that filled the kitchen and started choking. Funny, isn’t it? While I was busy putting out the fire I wasn’t aware of anything else. Now that the fire was out I noticed the smoke and even thought about how people trapped in burning buildings died from inhaling smoke before actually getting burned.

Which made me think, they used to say before you die your whole life flashes before you. But how do we know if this is true? How many people do we know who died and had their whole life flash before them and came back from the dead to tell the tale? Near death doesn’t count. You have to die, or as kids would say - you have to die dead.

I wasn’t even close to near death (thank God), you could say I was closer to burning the house down, and my life certainly didn’t flash before me. There was no time to think about the past and the things I did and the mistakes I made and the good deeds I did…. My only thought was – I have to put out this fire before my name appears in the local newspaper tomorrow. Luckily the fire went out easily, nobody got burned, and the only casualty was the kitchen towel.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Now Reading.......

... Exodus by Leon Uris. Word War II zawh vela Jews ho chanchin a han ziak tak tak mai chu Juda thlah ngei ka lo ni e ti a Israel rama pem ve te hi a chakawm rum rum mai asin. Mahse ka peih teuh lo.