Saturday- (n) a day of week when working bachelors are found in front of Laptop browsing absolutely anything.(e.g. generally starts from a movie trailer and ends upon likes of “how to make handmade paper flowers”) They are also found excitedly telling their cook to prepare what they had been thinking whole week, although there is no related raw material in the kitchen. Their chairs breath free of dirty laundry and the house shines after a real-time wiping (not the one which their maid claims to do daily while they are asleep after opening the door and getting back to bed like the zombies). Night is spent in taking vows on not letting next Saturday go this much lame. Loop continues.

On one such typical Saturday, the bomb exploded. We went deaf for the first 15 seconds in the aftershock. Finally when our brains returned to consciousness, one of us managed to utter a few words to confirm what just past across us- “Aunty, you are not gonna come for ten days? “. Another one turned to two of us like a retard “did she just say ten days??” “How will I go to gym now.. and my dance classes.. I.. I have to do this project module.. What the..”. We three flat mates with flushed faces kept begging to our maid for reducing the number of days or at least giving us a substitute. Answer was a cold “nai ho paega. manage kar lo”. That day seemed not too far when maids will be tagging us in Facebook status “Will be out of town for a week. expect delay in response ..”.Anyway, snap back to reality.

The first flat-mate’s (referred to as F1 going ahead) lifeline rests on our maid’s existence. If We had not stopped F1, she could have given many other daily basic works to her. F2 is a cleanliness freak and she kinda relish sadistically in such times of crises when she gets to boss us around more freely. Vows of using less utensils and mental snapshots of used utensils zipped with the user’s face were taken. F2’s cranky voices were even more in the air than before. “why are shoes 5 Cms away from where they are supposed to be?”. “Why plates are not in the third drawer and glasses in the first?” “Oh so many items on the table give me headache?” “could you two just disappear and leave me alone?” and the frequent “What is this smell?”. We were increasingly found in the balcony with mug of boosted-milk and Pink Floyd.

Well, slowly many other revelations took place. In the kitchen, Refined oil was finished ages ago and we were cooked food in fatty mustard oil. F1 suddenly happened to realize that she must have gained calories because of this and was pro rata agitated. On the third day, when need of dusting was irresistibly felt, broom was no where in sight. Did the maid use to bring and take the broom back?? Unlikely. but then what else? Another eye opening discovery was absence of any floor cleaning bucket. At this, F2 became 100% sure with vengeful eyes that it must be her bathing bucket which had been used all this while for this unholy purpose. She was disconsolate and we could just distantly imagine intensity of her agony. She was better left alone with The Wedding Planner videos and her inseparable sanitizer. Lightening struck me as well when the floor-mop came out to be my FastTrack T-shirt. Its journey from my almirah to the floor was baffling.

Deciding over menu each night required heavy brainstorming. We were quite used to be eating what was put in front of us. We had ‘choice’ and it was overwhelming. We had not brought sabzi in over a month and we were unable to remember what have we been eating and who was bringing it.Answers were escaping us. Maid was conspicuous by her absent everywhere. We were loosing confidence. F2 even tried to find any unidentified space in the house.After much upheaval, bouts of hostility and several rounds of talks, the plan was charted. Roles and responsibilities were assumed. Office phones, Outlook and Lync were used extensively, more than ever used for their original purposes. We survived.

Comes Today, the 10th day! In the hope of opening the door (= forcing F1 to open it by posing dead to the doorbell) tomorrow at 5.45 am to have lovely sight of our maid, I sign off to sleep.

Have a good and clean night !