Monday Morning Blues The morning son had filtered in when I had the sounds of footsteps. The maid had entered with a cup of steaming Darjeeling tea, complete with a sliver of lemon, in my favourite bone china cup and saucer. I smiled, but my smile turned into a wail as my dream ended and the morning alarm woke me up to another dreaded Monday. Everyday should be Sunday, a day of leisure of rest and relaxation. Someone should ban Mondays, the day when everything begins with a riot and ends in a disaster. Mom where are my socks?Memsaab, the gas is over, can you find my wallet please, I hear these sounds through an amnesic haze. I try not to think what the weekend has piled on my desk at the work place, impossible deadlines to meet, impossible targets to accomplish, grievances to be redressed, meetings to be attended and files, which seem to be programmed to arrive every five minutes, to be cleared. Monday is the day when the week stretches out almost into infinity, to not just 5 working days but120 hours, 7200 minutes and 43200 seconds. One Monday I dread returning home, to frayed tempers, disgruntled maids, domestic crisis erupting like Mt Vesuvius and the house looking more like a hovel than a home. Was it just yesterday that I walked barefoot in the garden, the grass all squishy under my feet, and watched the white orchid bloom on a tree? Was it just yesterday that the parrot flew off from my guava tree, and I actually saw a purplish black butterfly encircle my head? Was it Saturday or Sunday when we dawdled over late brunch of aloo paratha and mango pickle and idli and sambhar? Did we watch Tare Zameen Par our eyes wet with tears, just this weekend? Was it this weekend that my son hooted with delight when he beat me in a game of scrabble? Was it Sunday morning when I took my frail and old mother by her hand and set out for my morning walk? Was it just yesterday that I lived life in slow motion, each action etched in my memory, which I could rewind and relive at leisure? During the week we live like as though we are channel surfacing, switching from one role to another, as though life is to be lived in the fast forward mode, as if we are being packed into a pressure cooker with only one vent weight allowing us to give off steam. I get up every Monday thinking that Mondays should be banned from the calendar. A four day working week will not make the weekend seem so far away. Like Bahadur Shah Zafar, I would spend the four days saying, Do Arzoo Mein Kat Gaye, Do Intezar Mein, (two days were spent in wanting and two in waiting.)