Saturday unlike Sunday`s are meant for noise. Or so the cool kids, which incidentally are also my kids believe. They are the youth, they make the rules. It`s like an unwritten legislation in the books of all countries – everything remotely cool will be inherited and ruled by the youth. The definition of youth is the absence of the feeling of being tired, no white hair (if you have black hair) – and no bald patches. There`s another one too – if the majority of all youth don`t believe you are a youth, you cease all rights. I got burned by that rule – I was de-youthed when I was 20. They barred me for life.
Youth or otherwise, among changing regimes, Maushi controlled her life, and I argue she controlled that of many others in her vicinity. Her life was that of the sun, no matter what goes on, on the petty little planets – the sun always does what she wants to – like parties leading to solar flares, the winter vacation, the summer over burn – so was the case with her. If my house was a country Maushi would be the president - no delete that – she`d be the dictator.
She got the afternoon siesta, the early morning newspaper time, the evening walk and the likes that define a good life for the non-youth. You know leisure, with some sprinkles of life. I was jealous of the routine she had developed and didn't try to mask it in any way.
Agnes was running around the house celebrating the no-school day. No school days, judging by the happiness on Agnes's face was the adult equivalent of finding extra money. No happy poem can describe it. It is the happiness of the moon swirling around the earth in her pretty dress. Of that of a balloon, untethered.
Lily, the book monster, would gulp down a good portion of a 10-course meal book on a Saturday. Sufficient wasn`t enough for her – she had to go for abundance and beyond. No matter how much she read, she always wanted to read more. If you walk into her room when she`s feasting over a good book – it`d be difficult to find her – the book, the bed, the cushion, and her - would all have merged to become a single organism. An organism that doesn`t move. Come to think of it, if a T-rex ever attacks you, just get the book out of your backpack and start reading – I`ve heard that the only way the T-rex can see is with movement – so if you don`t move – for the T-rex you become invisible. It is kinda beautiful.
The early morning had given way to morning, just like that, these adjectives have a way of dropping themselves out. Maushi had prepared a feast of a breakfast. If Lily was the book monster, Agnes surely was the food-monster; the one defining trait of a monster is hunger – have you ever thought of that. As soon as breakfast was announced – Agnes swooshes her way into the hall. She rattles, clatters and clangs – breaking the delicate balance of silence – like the sun suddenly breaks out of the night –like a plop in a thick black liquid - like break-fast on an empty stomach. The balance shifts. All this clinging and clanging disconnects the flow of Lily`s reading, rolling her eyes she walks into the hall too – she was dreamy and yawny - – the wire connecting her to the other (book) world had suddenly been snapped by Agnes and she hadn`t completely made her way to this (breakfast) world.
“What are you so excited about” she asks Agnes.
“Breakfast” replies Agnes
“Don`t we have breakfast everyday”
“But not like this…” she says – pointing to her Pooh bear pyjamas and a misshapen top, I~m sure it has a name but I just don`t know.
Maushi interrupts the beginning of the Saturday war as she asks me for a hand with the setup and of we go.
There`s almost no conversation as we`re all changing the status of our stomachs from empty to the misguided “I don`t think I`m going to have lunch”
“Did you know Ayesha and her friends are distributing sun-glasses for sunflowers?” said Agnes looking at me
“What..?” I asked trying to comprehend
“Its almost summer and the eyes of the sun flowers hurt looking at the sun all day, so they`re going to distribute sun-glasses for sun-flowers” I looked at Lily for her to help me out
Completely unmindful of the conversation. Lily ask`s Agnes “When are your exams”
“In 3 weeks” comes the reply
“Should you not start studying” asked Lily – the elder sister
“Ah. There`s enough time” – comes the reply
“Last time you said you didn`t have enough time and hence weren`t able to concentrate because you said there was so much to concentrate on” – another volley from Lily
“I`ve built my concentration now – I`ve grown older in all this time and can concentrate” – comes the deuce from Agnes
“Really!?”
“Yes”
“Look Balloons !! ?” says Lily suddenly pointing at the balcony
Agnes, leaves the table and rushes out – to find nothing. Comes back with a grump of a grumpy face. I`m almost laughing out loud and Maushi chuckles.
“I`ve bub built my concentration now” mocks Lily
Maushi broke a grape and munched it – I was worried a war would break out and here she is relishing a grape - I just don`t get her.
And well, you obviously know what happens next. The parliament wouldn`t have seen such a ruckus. When there are 2 monkeys fighting do you let them fight or do you sit and wonder why are you calling your own kids monkeys?
