Look, it's not a sin or anything... It's not like it harms anyone or anything... and I pretty much restrict it to my own room. You would think the "Keep Out" sign on my door would help. Unfortunately, my Mother the Great can sniff out a tiny messy broom closet in the 120-storeyed tower with thousands of rooms in each floor.
Well on most days I protect my extremely-messy-to-the-general-public-but-a-heaven-on-earth-for-me room with the ferocity of a mother lioness protecting it's cubs. But then, even mother lioness cannot hope to hold its ground against my Mother the Great. On most days, thankfully, mom pretty much leaves my room alone after finding, for the umpteenth time, the neatly folded clothes in the cupboard miraculously transplanted helter-skelter to the floor within two shakes after she exits the room, glowing with the satisfaction of having made me work.
So I was happily living in my habitat wherein not even an inch of the marble floor peeped out from under the carpet of jeans, tops, skirts, T-shirts, underwear, novels, papers, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, bangles, CDs, cassettes, DVDs, poster paints, paint brushes, music sheets, a Veena and a laptop. A room where the music played 24X7 whose loudness never fell below 60 db. A room the cupboards perennially opened their doors wide, exposing their innards filled with some clothes and books that had refused to fall onto the floor below, which by the way, never fails to remind me of The Mummy where that dude opens his mouth to swallow Brendan Fraser (isn't he chooooo chweeeet?) and his pals on the plane with a sandstorm. That was quite a nice movie... actually I love all movies that star Brendan... err... what was I saying initially? Ah yes.
My room.
My lovely, cosy, safe haven.
My sanctuary.
My paradise on earth.
My mom's hell on earth.
To my chagrin, when we moved into the unfinished house that has alas, remained unfinished for the past six years, I found out that my promised room upstairs was yet to be built. That left two bedrooms for a family of three.
Which is not so bad, you say.
Which is why you are a dunderhead, I say.
Well, to the mom, dad and the teenage daughter combo, try introducing the concept of a guest.
When we first moved in, and I remember my dad promising in between the flurry of guests that the nights on the couch won't last too long and my room upstairs would be ready in no time, and that I just had to sit tight and wait.
Well I waited all right. For SIX years. No masons ran up and down building the mythological rooms upstairs.
Of course six years ago, I was an innocent thing who didn't really care that my room being trespassed. But at the present, boy did I care. I cared a LOT.
So when my mom announced with glee that her uncle who worked for the Indian Airlines, whom she hadn't seen for eons, was flying from Mumbai that night, you can understand why I didn't exactly receive that news with glee. Without listening to one more word I gloomily dragged myself off and started tidying things up (read mutilating) my room. Halfway through folding the fifth piece of clothing, I was drowned by the futility of my actions. No one really opened the cupboards; they just needed to sleep in my room. Everyone simply lived off his or her suitcases. So I just scooped everything off the floor, with the exception of the veena and the laptop and shoved it with superhuman might into four empty cupboards. I pressed my shoulder against the doors and locked them with a flourish. It took five minutes to change the bed sheets and sweep the room.
The outward effect was very pleasing.
Mom was pleased.
So was her uncle who worked in the Indian Airlines who flew in from Mumbai that night.
Who wasn't so pleased after five minutes…
Well after the initial chitchat, I showed this imposing and immaculately dressed man into my room. I left him to his unpacking.
Unfortunately this man differed from everyone else. He did not live off his suitcase. He is used to unpacking and hanging his clothes in the closet. He asked me for a clothes hanger.
Showing the memory capacity of an earthworm, I nicely opened my cupboard.
It seemed like an eternity to me. As the tumbling and uncontrolled flow the aforementioned items drowned the two of us, two words loudly echoed in my mind.
Uh oh.
I looked at the imposing man. An earring hung off his hair and a bracelet was draped over his ear. A T-shirt hung limply from his arm. He was knee deep in my paraphernalia. Most embarrassingly, a bra was hanging from his belt buckle. His jaw looked permanently embedded on the floor. His eyes popped enough to beat the current world record.
As for my case, I didn't even want to know what I looked like.
Hysterical laughter threatened to overwhelm me.
Without a word I grabbed two hangers and shoved the stuff lightening-fast back where they were. I quietly handed the clothes hangers to him and disappeared from the vicinity.
After two days with my "Keep Out" sign firmly back on the door and the marble floor covered once more, I pondered over how I could've avoided dumping my stuff over the imposing and immaculately dressed man who was my mother's uncle who worked for the Indian Airlines.
So here's my advice to all those out there whose rooms double as guest bedrooms...
Coerce your dad into building that room upstairs ASAP.
Well on most days I protect my extremely-messy-to-the-general-public-but-a-heaven-on-earth-for-me room with the ferocity of a mother lioness protecting it's cubs. But then, even mother lioness cannot hope to hold its ground against my Mother the Great. On most days, thankfully, mom pretty much leaves my room alone after finding, for the umpteenth time, the neatly folded clothes in the cupboard miraculously transplanted helter-skelter to the floor within two shakes after she exits the room, glowing with the satisfaction of having made me work.
So I was happily living in my habitat wherein not even an inch of the marble floor peeped out from under the carpet of jeans, tops, skirts, T-shirts, underwear, novels, papers, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, bangles, CDs, cassettes, DVDs, poster paints, paint brushes, music sheets, a Veena and a laptop. A room where the music played 24X7 whose loudness never fell below 60 db. A room the cupboards perennially opened their doors wide, exposing their innards filled with some clothes and books that had refused to fall onto the floor below, which by the way, never fails to remind me of The Mummy where that dude opens his mouth to swallow Brendan Fraser (isn't he chooooo chweeeet?) and his pals on the plane with a sandstorm. That was quite a nice movie... actually I love all movies that star Brendan... err... what was I saying initially? Ah yes.
My room.
My lovely, cosy, safe haven.
My sanctuary.
My paradise on earth.
My mom's hell on earth.
To my chagrin, when we moved into the unfinished house that has alas, remained unfinished for the past six years, I found out that my promised room upstairs was yet to be built. That left two bedrooms for a family of three.
Which is not so bad, you say.
Which is why you are a dunderhead, I say.
Well, to the mom, dad and the teenage daughter combo, try introducing the concept of a guest.
When we first moved in, and I remember my dad promising in between the flurry of guests that the nights on the couch won't last too long and my room upstairs would be ready in no time, and that I just had to sit tight and wait.
Well I waited all right. For SIX years. No masons ran up and down building the mythological rooms upstairs.
Of course six years ago, I was an innocent thing who didn't really care that my room being trespassed. But at the present, boy did I care. I cared a LOT.
So when my mom announced with glee that her uncle who worked for the Indian Airlines, whom she hadn't seen for eons, was flying from Mumbai that night, you can understand why I didn't exactly receive that news with glee. Without listening to one more word I gloomily dragged myself off and started tidying things up (read mutilating) my room. Halfway through folding the fifth piece of clothing, I was drowned by the futility of my actions. No one really opened the cupboards; they just needed to sleep in my room. Everyone simply lived off his or her suitcases. So I just scooped everything off the floor, with the exception of the veena and the laptop and shoved it with superhuman might into four empty cupboards. I pressed my shoulder against the doors and locked them with a flourish. It took five minutes to change the bed sheets and sweep the room.
The outward effect was very pleasing.
Mom was pleased.
So was her uncle who worked in the Indian Airlines who flew in from Mumbai that night.
Who wasn't so pleased after five minutes…
Well after the initial chitchat, I showed this imposing and immaculately dressed man into my room. I left him to his unpacking.
Unfortunately this man differed from everyone else. He did not live off his suitcase. He is used to unpacking and hanging his clothes in the closet. He asked me for a clothes hanger.
Showing the memory capacity of an earthworm, I nicely opened my cupboard.
It seemed like an eternity to me. As the tumbling and uncontrolled flow the aforementioned items drowned the two of us, two words loudly echoed in my mind.
Uh oh.
I looked at the imposing man. An earring hung off his hair and a bracelet was draped over his ear. A T-shirt hung limply from his arm. He was knee deep in my paraphernalia. Most embarrassingly, a bra was hanging from his belt buckle. His jaw looked permanently embedded on the floor. His eyes popped enough to beat the current world record.
As for my case, I didn't even want to know what I looked like.
Hysterical laughter threatened to overwhelm me.
Without a word I grabbed two hangers and shoved the stuff lightening-fast back where they were. I quietly handed the clothes hangers to him and disappeared from the vicinity.
After two days with my "Keep Out" sign firmly back on the door and the marble floor covered once more, I pondered over how I could've avoided dumping my stuff over the imposing and immaculately dressed man who was my mother's uncle who worked for the Indian Airlines.
So here's my advice to all those out there whose rooms double as guest bedrooms...
Coerce your dad into building that room upstairs ASAP.
1 comments:
reading this d 2nd or 3d tym...loved d way its written :)
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