We shall overcome

First of all a belated Happy Sanskranti, Lohri and Pongal to everyone. That reminds me of the scene yesterday. Sitting in the balcony we were talking somewhat like “Look at the kids nowadays, they don’t even know how to fly a kite”, “In our time we used to use the same kite again and again by fixing it up with boiled rice”, “Remember how 14th used to be the first day of the year we took bath, that too forcibly”. Conversations were going like this, until a thought struck my mind – “We are talking like oldies”, “Have we grown too old?”…. “Naaaahhhhhhhhh..Never”, my heart corrected me in a second, and gave a few loud poundings to bring me back to the reality.

God works in mysterious ways. Just when I decided to dedicate my free time to doing something productive (for at least a couple of weeks), he decided to send our maid for a holiday. And for what time duration? No points for guessing. A couple of weeks. What I visioned myself doing was making some fancy presentations, doing some R&D on latest technological innovations and polishing my LinkedIn profile. And what it turned out to be? Me doing dishes in the kitchen and debating with my flatmates on where to have dinner. Choices spoil us. When our maid was there, there were no debates like this. She was like “Here is Aaloo Gobhi and Dal for you. Deal with it.”

Circumstances make us do strange things. This was a critical phase for all of us. Three bachelors, self reliant, for a complete two weeks. We had to get food ourself, do the dishes ourself, wash the clothes ourself and the worst, clean the house ourself. After holding a few round of round table conferences we jointly concluded that the dishes and the house are no longer kids. Leave them alone and don’t disturb them. They can take care of themselves. Clothes? Well, may be wear formals for consecutive days and keep throwing the clothes in the bin. However poor we might look, we have clothes to last two weeks at least. And what about food? People tend to die without food. Or do they? We reminded ourselves of the golden engineering and NITIE days, when people used to die because of mess food, and Maggie was the savior. Safe conclusion – Let’s go for dieting for the next couple of weeks.

4 days into this routine, everything is going well till now. Except that the house is turning into an abandoned cave day by day. Bottles (Milk bottles of course) are piling up. There is a mountain of clothes forming up somewhere on the south eastern part of the cave. The peelings of fruits are left to wander all over the house. A discovery has been made that there is no broom in the house (Left us to wonder how was the house being cleaned till date). And the worst part, we have already locked ourself out of the house a couple of times.

Nomadic life? Or college life? Both are, anyways, same in a number of ways. God tests us at many points. This is one of that phase. And it shall pass too. It shall pass too.

We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome some day. Oh deep in my heart, I do believe. We shall overcome some day.