Creatures of the Night

The day begins nice and early at an unmentionable hour which somehow falls in the second quarter of the day. It’s nowhere close to the afternoon mark that I consistently beat in my Bombay avatar. Is this seriously an MBA course that I am pursuing? All those horror stories of 16+ hour days are a thing of the past as we indulge in P2P networking. Assignments are taken care of by four clicks of the mouse.

1st: Right click - Select
2nd: Left click – Copy
3rd: Right click – Select Destination
4th: Left click – Paste

Voila… you have an MBA ready here. Is this seriously what my forefathers envisioned for their future generations?

As these thoughts buzz in and out of my head, my eyes open slowly. Saket is invariably standing on top of my head… shouting my name. Urging me to wake up so that his moral obligation towards me as a roomie is satisfied. I thank him in true Mumbhaiya ishtyle by asking him to shut the %^$& up. My sleep is broken but I roll in bed for another 15 minutes to acclimatize myself to this new found consciousness. By doing so my wake up time is stretched a little ahead and I can cheat by saying that Kallu is not the first thing I saw on this beautiful day. He aint bad looking or anything. It’s just that he he’s nowhere close to the dream I was in. Atleast his face isn’t half as bad as the ass cracks you’ll see early morning while travelling in Bombay trains.

Having woken up I go to my cell phone and turn the radio on. There’s is only one radio station in this god forsaken student’s city. So much for consumer choice. Bollywood comes to Pune as some hindi song is played out. I start humming to the tunes of some damsel in the best falsetto that I can produce. At my best I am comparable to K.L.Saigal. We both seem to cry while singing. I am sure that earlier generations which heard his songs would beg to differ.

With the setting taken care of I proceed to iron clothes that refuse to shed their wrinkles. These are the marks that have been left behind after all those hours of abuse they have been through while covering my body. As I waste a further 15 minutes other scenes are being enacted in the household.

Saket – our wonderful housewife, the one certified early bird of our household. If it weren’t for him the rest of us would’ve never turned up for any lecture before lunch time. His day begins whenever he has to wake Shloke up. After seeing off his favourite member of the buddy program with a French kiss he wakes us up and goes for his ritualistic bath. I and Banta are invariably still asleep when he’s come out from his bath while Ritesh is busy brushing and tending to his French beard. He once again wakes us up by saying the magical words “ Its 9’o clock guys. Getting late for the 1st lecture.”

Banit finally wakes up and roams around the house in true zombie style. As a golden rule we let him be. No one generally tries to engage him in conversation as its as futile as finding a girl for Tuktuk. We know he’s taking his cold water bath (Audrey Hepburn only bathed in cold water) when we get to hear the singing of this iconic bathroom singer. I bow to thee master. Bath over, clothes worn, he proceeds to do the single most time consuming activity of his daily life – tying his turban. Twenty square feet of prime property is taken away as he spreads his pagdi. I am left wondering as to why we don’t charge him extra rent every month.

All this while, Ritesh is watching us. He undoubtedly takes the quickest shower ever.
Think he only spends around 3 minutes doing so. A larger time period is spent when he takes a crap. It’s largely due to the conscious efforts of this voracious reader that we have a beautiful bathroom cum library. Rest of us have the options of choosing from the latest ET, TOI, India Today and Business World when we dump. He then proceeds to do an ‘”Aarti” (not do Aarti you pervert) as incense sticks are lit. I feel nice about this ritual as I imagine other homes where cigarette sticks are being lit.

Cant ask for a more eventful start to another day in paradise. Can I ??