Mimosa, with Samosa, Vani (Part-9)

The alarm rings promptly at six in the morning. I don’t have to wake up. I don’t have to go anywhere. My services are not needed by anyone, any more. I wake up, bound to habit, shower, and get dressed in the floral dress I ordered from Coldwater creek, to look like the mother of a teenager in one of the magazines. I prepare a very delicious breakfast for Ruchi and Shekhar, and wait for them to wake up. Only they wake up, eat their breakfast, dash off the door. Without noticing my dress, or my hair, or the breakfast. I try not to notice that, and turn on my computer. I check my mail, I reply to all my girl friends, send ha-ha responses to forwarded jokes, and read every piece of news that didn’t matter. Soon, I got bored, and started cleaning out the fridge. That was done in an hour.

Actually I cleaned out the entire kitchen, and spilled a few things on my pretty flower dress. I called the cleaning lady and tried to cancel her Saturday appointment. Only she didn’t let me do it. I trusted your job to pay the mortgage she said. She was right. She is making a weekly trip to our house ever since Ruchi was born. We moved around the mountains in the past few years, and she made it to our place, 9 am sharp, wherever it was. Rain or shine. Because she knew she is the one who will end up cleaning in the end. Be it a week, or two. She told me that she was lagging behind mortgage payments since people are cutting back, and she, along with cable television gets the axe. I couldn’t tell her not to come. I think my unemployment for the week covers her monthly wages and tips.

It’s only 10.30, and I have nothing to do. Now I feel that I should have taken a long bubble bath. Bored, I pick up a book. It bores me even more. When I didn’t have time, it was a luxury to read books, and I made time for them. Now there is too much time, and I don’t feel like reading suddenly. I start my laptop, and look for Ruchi on the net. There is only one Ruchi Potluri on Myspace, or rather google, making it easier for me. Nothing that I didn’t want to know, except that she has hots for the same man that I have, and it’s a weird feeling for a mother. Except that shaggy haired, shiny blue eyed Calvin is on her google chat. Just because I have a parental control on her computer doesn’t mean I have to spy on her, but a jobless mother is the most dangerous thing in the world. Or make it a laid off mother.

I cancel my girl’s lunch citing schedule problems. I am not ready to tell anyone that I am laid off yet. The moment people know, they will start asking the obvious what next question. It’s not that I go and sit in their house begging for their attention if I lose my job, but people always make you feel inconsequential when you are jobless. They will show off how busy they are even when it doesn’t make a difference in my life. May be when I had a job, I might have done something like that to hurt them, unknowingly. Whatever the reason is, joblessness is the height of intellectual failure in my ladies circle.

Intrigued by the powers of google, fuelled by boredom and loneliness, I try to hunt down Shekhar on the net. Clean slate. Except for the linkedin and alumni websites, there is no record of him being a bad man like Satish. But then, may be Shekhar’s girl friends are happily married women. Bored housewives. Makes me cringe. I am one right now. Bored at home, and a wife. What if I had an affair with Shekhar, like Shobhana in Mitr? Knowing Shekhar, he wouldn’t encourage me. Rather, he wouldn’t have time for an affair. But there are unknowns about everyone. Shekhar is human too, not God Rama. It’s been long enough for our marriage to be a little bored. It’s Ok to be bored, as long as we want to rekindle the flame together. It’s only a problem when we look elsewhere.

I log on to my class, and start working on my assignment and on the whim, enroll in to two more writing classes. They are only a few hundred dollars at University extensions and are online. At least they will keep me busy. My classmates are all writers, according to them. But when I go to each of their websites, it’s nothing but rehashed lines of poetry from random poems. Same old love being red, emotions running deep. But they respected their art, and gave it prominence in their life. I respect that sentiment. Some have written books too. I haven’t heard of any of those books. Never saw them in any bookstore. Never read any reviews. That doesn’t make them unworthy. Just my random observation. Not being judgmental. There is a lot printed, there is a lot read. If I missed something, it’s not the end of the world for any writer. I start my assignment. My instructor wants me to take the newspaper, find three interesting articles and write an article. Interesting, though I don’t find anything interesting in Wall Street Journal except that the Dow Jones is shedding.. And investors are hibernating.

I leave my assignment mid-way, read my admirer’s letter again, and look him up on google. He is no Salman Rushdie, but he is a middle aged gentleman with greenish blue eyes. He has written books that haven’t enchanted anyone, but there are a few fans on his website. He is working on his next novel, probably another love story of sorts. I smile as I think of the possibility of being the inspiration of his novel, of having my quirks in one of his characters. But now that I that I have written an almost rude letter not acknowledging his interest in me or my writing, I have killed that wish. Or maybe not. I see a new email from him. May be to curtly say thank you for responding, anyway!