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Sundays

There was a time when I waited for Sunday. After a week of work, and I worked hard, a day of rest  was very welcome. I loved to sleep.  I am not an atheist, and I go to church maybe once a year for  midnight mass on Christmas eve. So I'm not a churchgoer basically. Therefore Sundays did not mean  that I was seated in the pews in church listening to the pastor's sermon.  The pastor, in fact,  would not recognise me until my sister, who goes more often to church, introduced me as her brother  after Christmas Eve mass. I also had a problem sleeping and would lie awake at nights trying desperately trying to fall asleep. I tried counting sheep and it never worked. I also tried those sleeping videos on YouTube. I listened  \ and felt bored. They were not music I was familiar with and they kept my eyelids firmly apart. Even a safe  tranquillizer that my doctor prescribed did not have any effect. The on...
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A Hike

I did not get a hike for a long time so I decided to ask the boss. "When do I get a hike?" I asked. "Don't disturb me," he said doing a mental calculation of the money he would save if he sacked me. "Do I get a hike or not?" I asked playing dumb. "Certainly," he replied, "where do you want to go?" "Go? But I want a hike!" I exclaimed. "Sure you do, just wait a minute," he said scrimmaging in his drawer. "You hide money in your drawer?" I asked surprised. "No, I don't," he said sitting up, "Here's the map I was looking for. You asked for a hike didn't you, take this!" "Where do I go?" I asked baffled. "On a hike," he replied, "You can always bum a lift from passing bums." "Oh!" I managed to gasp. "Out you go," he said dragging me by the collar to the door and delivering an a...
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Middle Distance

Middle Distance Staring into the middle distance is a great pastime for me in my idle hours. I am idle for hours on end or even weeks. In 35 years of earning bread I had little time to stare at the middle distance. I'm making up for lost time now. First let me speak about school. Penal servitude  is a mild word for it. My school was surrounded by very high brick walls painted a toxic red. From the outside it looked like what it was; a detention centre where a fixed tenure of 11 years was the norm. During such hard times there was no pastime as such. Books and more books were heaped on my shoulders making it seem like the proverbial last straw for the long-suffering camel. My spinal cord almost dislocated from lugging a heavy bag on a daily basis. In school, it was something akin to jail inmates glumly breaking large stones into little stones, with the prospect of indefinite tomorrows requiring more large stones to be broken. The brass bell eventually clan...
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Middle Distance Again

There is a middle distance one stares into when the mouth opens slowly and the jaw drops to the chest contentedly. There are many moments in life when this happens. There are some who are very gifted in the art. The head drooping also occurs on public transport in Kolkata. While you hang onto the bus handle as the man behind you pushes forward with his paunch and the chap to your left treads sadistically on the little toe, the person sitting on the right seems to go into a trance. You look at him fiendishly and wipe your brow for the nineteenth  time. The man remains thus even when you are unceremoniously ejected back onto the street. Then there are others who stare out of the bus windows at nothing in particular, except when their eyes alight on a pretty woman. You cannot mistake that look. It is the middle distance gazer at his best. He is unperturbed as you sway and get pummelled by fellow travellers as the driver tries to think he is in a grand prix. It’s not ...
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Sundays

There was a time when I waited for Sunday. After a week of work, and I worked hard, a day of rest  was very welcome. I loved to sleep.  I am not an atheist, and I go to church maybe once a year for  midnight mass on Christmas eve. So I'm not a churchgoer basically. Therefore Sundays did not mean  that I was seated in the pews in church listening to the pastor's sermon.  The pastor, in fact,  would not recognise me until my sister, who goes more often to church, introduced me as her brother  after Christmas Eve mass. I also had a problem sleeping and would lie awake at nights trying desperately trying to fall asleep. I tried counting sheep and it never worked. I also tried those sleeping videos on YouTube. I listened  \ and felt bored. They were not music I was familiar with and they kept my eyelids firmly apart. Even a safe  tranquillizer that my doctor prescribed did not have any effect. The on...
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Boredom

Cupid you must have heard of, the impish little fellow with a bow and arrow that is forever shadowing lovers. He has a cousin who is less well known. It is Boredom. He wields a blowpipe with which he wreaks mayhem, shooting darts at people who have little to do but twiddle their thumbs all day. The day came when the office was able to see my boots darken its doorstep for the last time. There was also a chorus wishing me a ‘happy retired life’. I nodded happily all around little knowing what I was letting myself in for.  At home I unpacked the goodbye presents and was thrilled to see that one was a microwave oven and another a dinner set. I also got a box of sweets. My elder daughter immediately confiscated them saying that it was too bad that I could not have them. She does not like sweets either, so I did not know what she did with them. The day after was glorious. The alarm did go off, but I put in on snooze. I put it back on snooze again after it rang. Then I swi...
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