A winter’s day spent at home ….sometime in November 2012…..

I recently gave up a bi-weekly hospital attachment and am not contemplating a structured work plan on those two mornings as yet. This allows me to be a home bird for the day till the evening OPD time. I am thoroughly enjoying the new experience and this is what a ‘home’ day sometimes looks like…

I wake up early and get ready for yoga class. Ideally, yoga is performed after a bath but since we are in the middle of a cold winter a face wash is going to have to suffice! I try to look and feel as alert as possible in front of the teacher. For an hour, Kapil and I try to twist and bend our non-compliant bodies into various asanas. The clicking and creaking sounds given out by our bodies make it clear to the teacher that this is not a cakewalk for us! Some asanas are executed correctly enough by us and some not. The balancing ones in particular see us teetering and swaying from left to right like drunken beings. Trouble brews when we get to the lion pose. This involves squatting in a particular way and making roaring noises with your mouth wide open. Kapil thinks my roar sounds more like singing and starts laughing. I see our pet dog staring at us through the glass with his ears cocking up in amazement at the strange noises we seem to be making. The reactions of husband and dog are enough to set off an acute attack of giggles, just like my schooldays….. we finally give up on this asana as we can’t stop laughing. The teacher, instead of disapproving of this disruption, also joins in and tells us that laughing is excellent for health! The session ends with yoganidra, a deep relaxation technique. We tend to drift off to sleep and are caught out by our snores.

Later, I walk with the children to the stop near the main colony gate to await the school bus. The stray dog outside our home gives us company for the first few metres, then decides against getting a formal education and runs off. My daughter tells me to do a headcount of all the puppies on my way back to ensure that all are safe and sound. She regularly appoints me as a grandmother to all the puppies produced in our colony. My son shows me the paper origami boomerangs he has made and wants to throw them on the road to demonstrate how well they return to the sender. I am able to convince him to defer the time and venue of this demonstration to home, in the afternoon.

When I get back home, I catch up on the daily news by reading the papers over a cup of coffee. My better half, Kapil gives me an envious look as he heads out to his office. However my leisure is short-lived and very soon I get sucked into the daily chores of a person spending a day at home.

Our bathroom is undergoing repairs as a leaking pipe had led to seepage in the flat below ; the floor is lying completely dug up with pipes surrounded by debris .Two leaky pipes have been identified but the suspense is apparently not over .There is a small chance that a third pipe may also have contributed to the seepage. The head workman says that the only way to be absolutely sure is to break the side façade of the building where the pipe is going down. I tell him there has to be a better way. We have a long discussion. Finally I use a professional example to drive home my point. After all, doctors don’t open bodies of patients and look inside every time. They figure out from the surface. It’s called having good diagnostic abilities. He gets my point now and gives a presumptive ‘diagnosis ‘that the pipe must be fine. I sigh with relief… I am eagerly waiting to get back possession of my bathroom. Currently I am sharing my son’s toilet and find myself surrounded by Rubik’s cubes, baby Colgate gel and ladybird bath towels… I am missing my old familiar crèmes and perfumes…

I then drive down to the market to buy a pair of shorts for my daughter. She has emphasised that I must keep an open mind on the length. She disapproves of parental shopping instincts: “you all tend to choose shorts which end close to the knee rather than those which are stylish!” Her lecture to me the evening before about not being too old fashioned has the desired effect and I end up buying a pretty and rather short pair.

Later in the afternoon, when she’s back from school, she inspects the shorts and says she is delighted with my choice but I will have to return them. She says they are not long enough. At this point I remind her of last evening’s brainwashing session. How she spent hours convincing me to keep an open mind and not reject a pair simply because it fell half or one inch short of my expectations! “Yes indeed!” says the wise one … “but there is a difference between being flexible and not using your common sense!” There’s no getting it right with this age group!! 

I also pick up my son separately from the bus stop. He tells me about his day. It seems to have passed off peacefully and I heave a sigh of relief. I look at his blackened knees and wonder how he manages this on a daily basis. At home, the children change clothes and go and investigate what is in the fridge to eat. They are presented with a bowl of fruit and a bowl of beetroot. They screw up their noses and exchange glances. I inspect their tiffin boxes; I complement my daughter on actually eating her food for a change. She coolly and truthfully tells me that it’s her friends who love paranthas… 

I go off to settle my wardrobe with the help of the nanny. I need to wear a sari for a reception and haven’t worn one in a while as I usually wear other traditional dresses. I take out my old blouses and start trying them out one by one to see which still fits. Archana looks at the fashionable blouses with a sense of wonderment. She finds it difficult to believe that at some point in my life I could have been slender enough to fit into these or even remotely glamorous enough to carry them off! One blouse which she is riveted by has two flimsy side panels held together only by a lace string in criss cross fashion. She repeatedly looks from it to my frame! I am reminded of the tailor in the small town I was posted to who stitched some of these. We would have these intractably long measurement sessions which were more of bargaining sessions. I would ask for a particular depth of neckline and he would disapprovingly insist that no one there kept it that way. I would point out that I would return to Delhi in a year or two and there the high neck blouses suggested by him would be considered too dull and unfashionable. He however considered it his duty to protect me from what he considered was moral degradation. Sometimes, though, I did manage to convince him and these more elegant blouses are testimonies to my little victories.

In the evening, I get ready to go to the clinic and the kids to the park. I apply perfume and they grumblingly, odomos. Their homework is set by their father or me and involves a fair amount of bargaining and compromise - ‘compromising’ as my son wrongly calls it! Kapil will be coming in soon and they will settle down for their homework.

At night, once I am back, we watch the children’s favourite TV serial, Master Chef with them. They keep the remote with them at all times and like to replay dramatic moments again and again-a habit we are unable to get them to give up. At least the habit is a milder version of their very young days when they wanted to hear the same story every night!

After TV, we tuck them into bed, and occasionally tell them stories…it’s usually different episodes of a seafaring group (based loosely on Sinbad’s tales). They sometimes get fully engrossed and are wide awake, completely engaged with the sailors’ lives…. and sometimes the adventures thankfully lull them to sleep soon…

Finally after a busy day, I curl up in bed with a good storybook. I have stopped reading scary mysteries at night ; I once read a scary murder mystery aptly titled ‘night time is my time’ where the killer uses the cover of darkness to bump off people rather than getting his hours under the sheets. I took a long long while to drift off to sleep as my fearful brain misinterpreted every night time sound in our house! I now confine myself to more sedate stuff, which eases me into a restful state….in preparation for the next day…..