As I make a rather elaborate dosa
potato curry and chutney breakfast on Saturday my mind flies back to when
weekends used to be weekends. When you
could do nothing but laze around if you wanted to.
Back in
Delhi when Saturdays were off every alternate week, and my house was managed by
my parents, it was only the doorbell and the kids that would wake us up and I
could have a lazy cup of tea over crosswords and cartoons in the Sunday paper
looking forward to a breakfast of alu parathas or puris or taking off to
Haldirams for a brunch of halwa puri.
There was no mad rush for grocery shopping or laundry to be done or a
dog to walk or a garden to be tended to. It all got done and though we cribbed
to have every Saturday off it was enough.
The laziest
weekends used to be even earlier when we got just the Sunday off in Kota. I was
woken up with either the maid or the milkman whoever made it first. And while I
sipped my morning cup of tea, the lovely Bimla applied henna to my hair.
Usually Sarita used to be making bread rolls for breakfast which was a break
from my toast with marmalade and boiled egg breakfast every day. Even though the
marmalade was homemade – yes made by yours truly with the Nagpur oranges every
winter- life seemed to be spread over an expanse of leisure.
Despite the
laid back lifestyle I practiced productivity techniques during the weekday
where my alarm clock was the milkman and I boiled my egg in my tea water, while
toasting my bread in a pan on a little electric stove. The gas burner and the
refrigerator came much later. The fridge when Poonam started coming over for
lunch. The gas burner I don’t remember when …
Coming back
to the lazy Sunday – we watched Mahabharat while devouring the bread rolls with
a hennaed head before going on to the next activity which was dusting the few
articles of my minimalist existence. When I had my little tape recorder this
was done in accompaniment to Simon n Garfunkel’s …like a bridge.. and other
numbers from a cassette Shefali had left before she moved to Delhi. Or ‘ o mere
sapno ke saudagar… Since I usually whirled and twirled to the music with my
duster the dusting took a little longer than warranted.
Lunch was
planned while we had breakfast and I contributed my staple diet of rice and
sambar ( I just boiled everything together and added the sambar powder ground
in the mixie ( that’s what we called the processor back then) that I had
rescued from being thrown away in Bellary and brought back with me to Kota. Sometimes
I contributed pyaazwale bhindi or karela. Sarita labored a little more with the rotis
and veggies. She turned out some lovely malai koftas on occasion.
Bimla
turned up by the time I finished my few chores and gave me my weekly massage
filling me in on the events in her life.
A luxurious bath later from a bucket of water heated by an electric rod
we congregated for lunch and the afternoon movie at Sarita’s. This was before
we walked to SP uncle’s to catch the evening flick on DD.
My laundry and
the dishes and the cleaning of the house was taken care of by Bimla somewhere
in the course of the morning and the dhobi took the clothes away to be crisply
ironed and starched.
By the time
evening came, we would perhaps venture out to buy some fruits and vegetables
and by this time were already wondering what to do with the rest of the
evening. And this was when just had the one day off.
And here I
am still checking off the things that did not get done this weekend and has to
go over to the next.
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