On a Sunday I like to die

On a Sunday, I like to die. I know some of you, may not view being dead as a useful state to be in, but sometimes one is better off as a corpse. A corpse has certain privileges which are not enjoyed by a non-corpse. But more on this later. First I have to tell you about some incidents.

It was early morning on a Sunday in February, about a month or so after my wedding. The rising sun was still too weak to pose any significant challenge to the winter fog that hung outside my bedroom window. I had just started stirring without fully emerging from slumber, prompted by the gentle pressure building up in my bladder. A quick realization that it was Sunday pushed me immediately back towards sluggish dormancy.

My arm reached out under the quilt across the bed, looking for the extra-warmth whom I had newly-wedded. I thought a sleepy, spoon-cuddle should be able to fend off this minor attack against the bladder bulwark. But my outstretched hand could not make contact with the aforementioned e-w whom I had n-w. Further investigative taps at various locations on the bed yielded the same result. Classifying her as missing-in-action, my arm retreated from its failed mission and coiled up once again against my chest. But by now my bladder, sensing possible victory against my sleep, pushed harder. My sleep, however, wasn't going to surrender so easily. It directed me to trundle out to the loo, with my eyes firmly shut, do my stuff and return without letting even a chink of light hit the retina. So off I went to do as instructed.

It couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes later that I returned, eyes still shut as per plan, and lay down. Just as my butt hit the bed, I realized that it didn't feel the same. Like a sleeping dog, who is off guard duty but still wants to check out an unusual sound, I opened one eye. The landscape around me had completely changed. The bed was neatly made up, the quilt folded under the pillow and the bedcover had been spread. The very same n-w, instead of providing e-w, was sitting cross-legged sipping her coffee, looking out of the window, taking in the sight of the languid, dull-orange sun. At that moment, I woke up fully to the realities of my newly married life.

Fast forward nearly three decades to Bombay. Life has changed. Attacking my sleep is now an institutionalized, outsourced process. My duties include answering the door, when the bai rings the bell at 6:30 in the morning, and picking up the newspaper which could lie anywhere within two metres of the entrance. Very often, to avoid the risk of the door accidentally shutting behind me, I have to keep one foot firmly planted while doing a forward lunge with the other leg and reach down to pick it up - an activity, you would agree, is not designed to bring cheer on any face at that time of the day.

Over time, I started holding this against the bai and I think she too sensed a pattern in my daily scowl. We, therefore, have developed a mutual animus. This hostility manifests in her stalking me from room to room. Within minutes of my vacating my station in the bedroom and plonking myself on the living room cushion she appears there with her broom, like a witch looking for a prey. She then stares down at me without speaking, till I get the message and move myself to another part of the house. But there is no escaping her. Many times, I am reasonably sure that she has already cleaned the room where I happen to be, but reappears there just to spite me. Unfortunately, she has got total support of my wife in treating me as a marble on a Bagatelle board in my own house.

Things came to a head one Sunday when I was lying on the bed, eyes closed, hoping to extend the night by an hour or so. Sensing her presence, I opened my eyes. "Bhaiyya uthiye, bistar bichhaana hai", she said. And before I could say anything, she unashamedly caught hold of the corner of my comforter and started pulling it away to fold it. This was the last straw. I jumped up and stormed out of the room, appealing to my wife to arbitrate on this act of deliberate harassment. But she didn't think my plaint was even worth registering.

So I had no option but to take matters in my own hand. Since that day, I have developed a deterrence against her aggression, which I use every Sunday. While the bai is attending to whatever it is that she does in the kitchen, I lie on my back on the bed and cover my torso completely with a white sheet from head to toe to disguise myself as a corpse. I lie still, hoping that when she enters the room she will think that I am dead and leave me alone. No one, not even an evil bai like her, will think of disturbing a corpse or pulling away its shroud. But just to be sure, I am trying to persuade my wife to sit beside me and wail.