Sundays then and Now

On Sundays, we can be justourselves, thumbing our noses atthe demands the world could beplotting to make on us.

ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, inourcolony, fatherswouldwash their cars. My father owned no car, but I wouldsit at the window and watch men doing simple me-nialthings with care and pleasure. The hosing down of thecar, the wiping dry, the washing of the tyres, and the periodicstepping back, head cocked to one side, to scrutinise one8217;shandiwork. Those days, long before the Maruti 800, no onesold their cars to upgrade. The vehicles were family mem-bers,and the Sunday morning bath was a ritual of love.Timewas set aside on the one free day of the week to clearly con-veyone8217;s affection to the four-wheeled pet.

I have owned various cars over the past 14 years, but havealmost never washed one myself.There hasalways been someone to keep it clean for amonthly fee. I would hate to spend even halfan hour on a Sunday morning tending to acar, nor have I ever bonded with any of thevehicles I have driven the way I remembermy neighbours doing. Those were muchsimpler days; the pulls and pressures on lifecould, well, be planned for much better. Andas a result, our adult Sundays are quite dif-ferentfrom those of our childhood. Ofcourse, they remain equally precious, butnot in the same way.

If some of my most pleasant childhoodmemories are about winter Sundays inKolkataspentat theEdenGardenswatchingcricket, today I would not dream of headinganywhere near Feroze Shah Kotla even if Se-hwagis starting the day on 87 not out. At theEden, with the dew drying, the pitch wouldease out between lunch and tea, and a com-fortablequiet woulddescendonthe stadium,brokenonlybythe crack of the ball hitting the bat. The hapless bowlerstoiled on, but the mildly hazy sunlight and the breeze blow-ingin from the river would lull the audience into a cosy tor-por.Just the way it happens to me on Sunday afternoons to-day,watching DVDs that make no demands on one8217;sanalytical powers.

In my teens in Mumbai, Sundays would be about travel-ingfromthesuburbsto RegalorErosto watchthelatestHolly-woodrelease. The Sunday Indian Express then called SundayStandard would carry fairly large ads of American films. Iwould religiously cut them out and paste them in my scrapbook. One memorable Sunday afternoon, three of us, all 15orsoyearsold, keptwalkingfromcinema halltocinemahall,trying to sneak in to watch any of three adults-only films8212;The Exorcist, The Omen and The Day of the Jackal. Rebuffed byinsensitiveticket-checkersrepeatedly, wefinallymanagedtofind a way into Sterling theatre through a back door andwatchedThe Omen.Wewere heroesinschoolfor aweekorsofor this feat, till someone else did something even morepaean-worthy.

Today,I wouldshuddertothink ofdoinganythingadventur-ouson a Sunday. First of all, it takes a crane to get me out ofbed in the morning. It8217;s about 11 o8217; clock by the time I havemanaged toextricatemyselffrom theheapofSunday paperson my bed and get ready to face the world on my own terms,thatis,as acouchpotato.By noon,Iamfit enoughtotakemydaughteroutforour weeklybondingsession;that is,wegotothe mall and buy stuff for her, a lot of whichshe may not even be particularly interestedin.Havingthus cunninglyassuagedmyguiltat having seen her awake only twice in thepast six days, I revert to couch potato-hood.

For me, the Sunday siesta has become in-creasinglyimportant over the years, andthat8217;s about the only time in the week thatmy cellphone is switched off.The only cou-pleofhours oftheweekwhen, inmyownut-terlymundane way, the world is renounced.Ah, the world. We lead our lives on therun,skiddingfrom deadlinetodeadline,try-ingto cope and sometimes even managingto. We increasingly define ourselves8212;andare defined by8212;our careers, and on week-days,the other roles that we need to em-bodybecome bit parts in a chaotic play.

On Sundays, the chief protagonist retires, andall the walk-on roles get to speak their lines,perhaps even soliloquies, get their place inthe8212;I8217;m sorry, this is unavoidable8212;sun. On Sundays, wecan be us. I can be just I, you can be just you, thumbing ournosesatallthe demandstheworldcould beplottingtomakeon us. You can go rock-climbing; I can spend the day in thebathtub.Youcan fightyourwaythrough themallsandspenda month8217;s earnings; I can play soccer with the neighbour-hoodkids. To each his own Sunday.Who gives a damn whatother people do on a Sunday? A Sunday is the most personalday of the week, the day for our little secret yearnings.How we spend our Sundays is an affirmation that wehaven8217;t sold out totally. It8217;s a day of hope. Remember thatnursery rhyme? On Saturday night/ Shall be all my care/To powder my locks/ And curl my hair./ On Sunday morn-ing/My love will come in/ When he will marry me/ Witha gold ring.

I am sure he did.