A few weekends ago, an event took place in our house. An event that shall go down the annals of the history of the RM Household, cuz we got our house whitewashed after 8 damn years! A lot of junk was pulled out, to my mother’s joy and dad’s dismay, and a lot of the junk was thrown away too. In the midst of it all, I found a treasure. My little pink sipper I used to insist on drinking milk from as a tiny tot. It was quite a treasure and while my mom insisted on putting it in the pile of junk to be disposed off, I secretly hid it in my bag. I had decided I would keep it for my child (someday!)and even dreamt of making it some sort of an heirloom!
There was a lot of confusion all day and the men who came to do the work were more boys than men, in the sense of the mess that they made of the house thereafter. Though, on second thoughts, I guess messing things up is common to both men and boys. The floor was caked with white paint and after they left, we had a hard time cleaning up the mess, to the extent of abusing our body! Nevertheless, the confusion that ensued all day was indeed quite a sight. My father was busy giving the men instructions about the art of painting a house, as if it was Greek to them. I was amazed at their patience and wondered about the fatal moment when they would hand him the paint brush in a fit and exit safely. I wondered at mom’s stamina too. As if cleaning up the house wasn’t tough enough, she made it a point to make snacks for the boys and fed them too. And I was busy pulling my hair apart cleaning up the mess, rummaging through the junk that my parents had managed to create in 30 years, watching my parents’ idiosyncrasies and cursing the obnoxious boys, in my mind, who couldn’t keep their eyes in their work.
A week after the storm had passed, one cold winter night, just as I was inside the Rajai, feeling the warmth settling in on my toes, my eyes fell on the tip of my ceiling, and a portion of the paint on the wall coming off. I felt the blood rushing to my head as I cursed the boys for doing a shoddy job, but I held myself and let it out in a very deep sigh. Damn! Life is a bitch sometimes, and boys can only mess things up!! All of that effort gone a waste, I wonder when this sarkari house that the government has kindly bestowed on us, will flow out of proportion. These guys have some talent for making a mess of every thing they touch.
