SUNDAY

It’s been a bad night. Watched some Chinese movies on TV last night when I had run out of everything else to do. Need less to say, everyone spoke Chinese. That, I thought, was the low point.

I was wrong, of course. Next the cops showed up at the door. I should rephrase. A cop showed up at the door with the watchman. The watchman speaks only Tamil so we mostly communicate with rudimentary hand gestures. He’s gesticulating wildly and I can’t understand a thing. I try not to laugh as I concentrate on the cop. He’s wearing a woolen cap with ear flaps.

“What are you doing?” The cop.
“ Nothing.” I say and I am being very honest. More honest than I have been in some time.

“Why are you not sleeping?”
“Not feeling sleepy.” It is 3.00 in the morning.

A second cop joins him.

“Why are you disturbing neighbours?” His breath smells of rotten whiskey.
“What? I was just watching a movie on TV in my own apartment. How am I disturbing anybody?” I ask, getting a bit irritated.

“Come to the police station.” The first cop says. He is the sidekick.

Cop “two” just waltzes into my apartment as if it is his birth right and heads straight into my bedroom. There is a powerful smell of stale cigarette smoke. I’ve been smoking most of the night. He looks around and finds some movies that I rented a week back, I think.

“What are these?”
“Movies.” I am trying to keep a straight face.

“American soldiers.” He leers at his sidekick, pointing at the DVD in his hand.

Then it hits me. He thinks it is porn. Thank god, I don’t EVER rent porn. I thank my stars and play the movie for him. After he is satisfied, he leaves, giving me dire warnings of taking me to the police station.


I sleep fitfully and wake up bright and early on Sunday morning after 3 hours of sleep, grudging existence. There is nothing to do. I go and buy more cigarettes and smoke my first one listening to the bird that lives on the tree right next to my window, chirp happily. My mother says, it is a koyal. I would kill it nevertheless if I could lay my hands on it.

I make breakfast. Eggs and toast. More coffee and another cigarette later I am back to where I began. I STILL have nothing to do. One needs something to do when one isn’t eating, smoking or trying to pass this holy Sabbath. One decides to read the newspaper.


Rahul Mahajan is critical after a heroin overdose. Hmmm… He shouldn’t have been partying anyways… the guys dad just died… serves him right.
The US has declared Dawood a terrorist. Wow… Those guys are quick on the uptake… it took them just 15 years of India screaming itself hoarse to realize that Dawood is actually a terrorist.

Some dude has designed a car that looks like a soccer ball (?) …Paulo Coelho is in Russia…Some dude has written an editorial on armpits….The Bachchan’s are worth over 200 crore… (Any dufus who sees Amitabh in every second commercial would know that) some woman’s married a snake…India’s tying to buy nuclear reactors (Yeah… get them before the nuclear deal with the US falls through)…. The sensex is yo-yoing again....up one day down the next…

I throw away the paper thoroughly disgusted and see how much of The O.C has downloaded. Ah… Five brand new episodes… 200 minutes of entertainment… I start on them immediately. Like every good thing...they end too. I am thinking about lunch when the cook shows up.

Macaroni and cheese is what he’s making for me but he makes a mess of it. I rue the fact that I asked him to make such a complicated dish in the first place.

One feels very frustrated. One reads the cartoons. Then one checks what’s on TV. One reads the matrimonial section.

Brahmin boy born in India living in USA, 5 feet 11 inches, earning 7 figures, seeks holy union with sweet, homely, tall, fair, educated Brahmin girl. A Kshtriya seeks alliance with another.

One throws away the newspaper and resolves to do something… one picks up one of the Harry Potters’ to re-read it a zillionth time