Lazy Sundays and Manic Mondays. It's supposed to work like that, right?
After a gruelling, non-stop working week, you’ll finally get to unwind on the weekends. Time to chill, put your feet up and bid adieu to work. A time to escape from the drudgery of daily life and find quality time to indulge in your passions. No shrill alarm bells to disturb your dreams, no anxiety to rush through the everyday routine, no fear of deadlines and targets. Just a laid back day, relaxed and reposed.
Unfortunately and unjustifiably, it doesn't work like that at all for the lady of the house. If anything, her workload increases exponentially during the weekends, especially on Sundays. She runs frenetically through the day squeezing into 24 hours countless hours of cooking, laundering, cleaning, socialising, running errands and winding up pending work. It is the longest day of the week for her. It's not a Lazy but a Crazy Sunday for her !
COOK N STEW
Sunday starts with prep and planning for the special goodies and delicacies to be cooked by the lady of the house. She has been given the honour to showcase her culinary expertise and she better be grateful! With mixed feelings, she marches into the kitchen after an elaborate tea drinking and newspaper reading ritual, dons her apron and starts rolling- from parathas to pancakes to pies- as per her dear family's pick. Each member has a different taste bud and her food needs to match each one of them in order to garner a good critique from them. Hubby dear likes a healthy, tummy-filling paratha, Pinky likes her smoothies, Chintu craves for a salami burger while Mummyji can only eat moong daal or oats due to the delicate state of her teeth and tummy. Dear old Papaji is permitted only pureed soups and fruits but hankers after puris; the almighty tussle between these two senior citizens in the house can provide amusement all day long. After hours of toiling, the only audible sound in praise of your food is a loud burp followed by an even louder gas leak. But, seriously...!
CLEANING QUEEN
Cleaning is a major activity on Sundays. Cook, then clean, supervise maids, then clean, prepare Chintu's class chart on vegetables, clean the mess, then help Pinky prepare her biology project, clean again. Mrs. Sharma, the next door neighbour, makes her mandatory pre-noon visits. You fabricate a smile and serve her snacks, bear her non-stop, senseless chatter and heave a sigh of relief after seeing her off. You groan inwardly and then clear the table again. It's mind boggling how many hours a woman has to spend just putting things in order and arranging stuff which her family systematically displaces with a birthright. Just when she thinks she's in for a welcome break, hubby dear wants a lemon tea and French fries with his TV show, so the head-chef marches into the kitchen and feels blessed when she's rewarded with a 'how sweet' remark by the man of the house. Mummyji is of course not so lenient with her plaudits. Why would she be, when she occupies the most powerful position in India after the Prime Minister? Her word is law and pleasing her a Herculean task! So don't stress ladies, just do your bit and forget. Some women sensibly hire a full-time maid or cook to bail them out from the work overload, but Sundays can be tricky. Either the maid takes a random off or the cook is ill-equipped to prepare the elaborate menu your family is craving for. Invariably, you find yourself at the centre stage of your home front, multi-tasking at breakneck speed.
MUNCHING THE LUNCH
Sundays are meant for family outings, movies and dinners. Or so you thought! You prepare a 3 dish meal and the kids start craving for a cheese-burst pizza. They snigger at your painstakingly prepared aloo dum, paneer kofta and bhindi kalaunji. So you put your foot down and exhort them to eat healthily. After witnessing their pretence of eating your gourmet meal with a glum face, you start feeling guilty for subjecting them to such torture. Your mommy-heart melts and you let them off from the torture food camp and they rush to play Xbox or Playstation. I wonder how many virtual world Formula One champs and decorated soldiers inhabit thousands of homes across the world.
Post lunch, half of the family is slumped in the living room drowsily, so you tip-toe your way to the kitchen .... to clean of course! The kitchen is a mess, half the food lies untouched- too mundane for hubby, too spicy for kids, too bland for Papaji (he was served the doctor prescribed lauki and plain daal) and too oily (roll your eyes) for Mummyji. Now, really..!!
'WINDOWS' SHOPPING
Shopping for essentials, for kids, groceries et al has to be squeezed into the day because it's a non-work day after all ! The family sits in its swanky sedan, all decked up, ready to ransack the glitzy gizmos at the electronics store at the nearby hip mall. You stroll leisurely trying to decipher the difference between the lollipop and marshmallow variants of the latest android versions being explained to you by your son who treats you like an imbecile when it comes to all things electronics. After feigning a polite interest, you give up and sneak into a nearby accessory shop to have a closer look at the pretty fuchsia slingbag being displayed on an anorexic mannequin. You, of course, aren't planning to buy it but prefer loitering here than wasting time over marshmallows that you can't even eat. The difficult task is shooing away the persistent salesgirl hovering over you trying to hard sell the 'magenta'(roll your eyes again) bag to you. Distancing yourself from her, you beat a hasty retreat to find your missing family. Chinese cuisine is the safest choice for dinner because even Mummyji enjoys it. Finally, you think that you've got a reprieve from the day's drudgery. But did you really? Halfway into the meal you remember that Pinky's biology project still needs to be finished and decorated and you lose all your appetite. Coaxing all to finish their meals in a fast forward motion, you saunter out of the mall, notwithstanding the grumpy looks of the family members and ignore stoically the jibes of being 'unorganised.' After-all, you are the mommy and should possess an elephantine memory. It could be anything (from kids' homework, stationery item, uniform, special tasks, applications to household item) but a misplaced or 'just remembered ' item right before the week starts is as common as that mole or wart on your face, ubiquitous but ignored. No prizes for guessing as to who bears the brunt if anything goes awry in a typical Indian household. I emphasise Indian because nowhere in the world is the woman more seemingly revered (for all practical purposes) and also chastised (for the same practical purposes) as she is in India. I'm excluding here the regressive nations with their socio-religious dogmas, who treat women as second-grade citizens.
THE MORNING AFTER
Monday morning blues are typical. Reluctance to leave the bed, stampede in dressing up to leave for school or office. Rush hour and mayhem mark the beginning of another week. The lady of the house collects her scattered brains and the wet towels lying around to set in order the chaotic aftermath of the day gone by. Papaji laments the emptiness of the house while Mummyji reminisces how 'relaxing' (roll your eyes again, wider this time) Sunday was! Oh, come on !
It's ironic how Sundays are enjoyed by all but the backbone of the house - the housewife, the homemaker! She needs the stamina of a Goliath and Hulk combined, possess the culinary expertise of a master chef and the unfazed disposition of a Tibetan monk to run her house efficiently. What's noteworthy is that we women ourselves try our level best to attain that level of perfection. Despite all the drama and 'dancing to the tunes' of our family members, we feel content in our hearts and revel in their love and appreciation.
Therein lies the eternal dilemma of a woman - how much to resist and how far to cave in. Drawing the lines as to the liberties that can be taken from you is an individual choice but highly recommended if you wish to relish a very well-deserved, lazy, restful and rejuvenating Sunday. You've earned it ladies....BIG TIME!
