The other side of the mirror

It was a typical sunny morning, where in, that helium hydrogen gaseous mixture high up on the sky, probably had a similar dawn break as mine and was at its cranky best. One may say it would be unfair on the milk man to have been blamed for me stepping on the milk packet half asleep. But with no coffee to start my day that was already breaking out with a throbbing head ache, wasn’t the best of scenario. I hurriedly stuffed some bread slices for lunch, made a mental note to buy some jam packet at the office canteen and rushed to the lift, only to realize half way down that my ID was left on the dining table. By the time I caught the same lift back, it had more stops than public transport on peak traffic route. I dashed out of the lift half hoping to catch it back and let out a whoop when I managed to step back inside, finally the day was beginning to look bright. Suddenly there was all darkness and the lift lurched open. 

The famed Bangalore power cut decided to make a cameo entry on my already miserable day. I huffed and cursed through every single step, all the way down, steaming into the parking lot only to find some moron happily parking his bike in front of my car. I am not that fluent in kannada, but I surprised myself with my vocabulary of profanity on that tongue. That guy was so shocked that he literally dragged his bike to road. Bangalore has a different unit of measurement for commutation. You don’t measure the distance in kilometers but with time. The same distance increases proportionately with every ticking second on the peak hour and gradually reduces to near normal during odd hours. But If the dogs were chasing, you can bet your money that any distance can be covered within milliseconds. I was stuck in purgatory and was halfway to hell when I entered office, half wondering which one I pushed more, was it the horn or the accelerator. 

When I stepped on to my floor, to the sweet relief of air conditioned environment, I began to relax a bit. I dumped my laptop on my cubicle and rushed to get my coffee mug. It was no surprise that the machine was being serviced. I somehow managed to convince myself the impact of murderous rage on an individuals career and personal life, dragging myself to my seat. The moment I opened my Mailbox, there were couple of meeting reminders with the top one blinking that it was over due by 10 minutes. In my hurry to attend, I missed noting which conference room it was happening and before I could check the invite, my boss called. Without any shame I asked him for the venue details and marched right into the room, only to realize that I had no clue on the agenda. That call happened exactly the way the day was happening for me and rest of the day was no less miserable. There were no jam available at the cafeteria and stale bread didn’t taste half as good as the regular one, that too without any jam or ketchup to go with. I prayed for the day to have less than 24 hours and was literally counting seconds to leave back home and curl up on the bed. 

I was the first person to head out to the parking lot in the evening and with every kilometer that I covered towards my bed, I felt as if all the mitochondria’s on my body had gone on furlough. When I opened the door to my apartment, I saw my husband wrestling with the kids on the hall. I stood with absolute jealousy for a minute and when he noticed me he gave a big smile and said “freshen up and come. Will get you something to eat”. 

“You better find a job soon. I am going to resign tomorrow”

This was actually a short story by Sujatha, written during the 70’s I guess. The twist in tale being, it was the mind voice of an office going lady, with a house husband. Probably would’ve sounded fancy as a twist in the climax with working women and stay at home men. If you feel the zing is missing or less, it is because either the scenario is not so novel nowadays with the roles getting reversed in many households or the essence of the master has been messed up in this translation!! I would bet on the latter.