Yours sinfully

It8217;s time to give up the sinful seven, I decide, and tomorrow8217;s the day. This tomorrow is definitely one that8217;s going to come. So I wake up bright and early 8212; that8217;s new, so perhaps I8217;ll be able to do justice to the my new resolution. Smile on my lips, I look out of the balcony and watch the ball of flame rise in the sky, hear the birds chirp well, whatever I could over the hum of the traffic. Hell, whoever said resolutions were difficult to live upto? This was going to be a piece of cake!

Thinking big, I step out of the house. The autowallah names a sum I don8217;t think he8217;s earned. Some raving and ranting later, mainly me telling the guy how often I traverse that road and why doesn8217;t he carry the rate card anyway, I enter the house only to realise that I have just fallen into sin8217;s number one trap 8212; anger.

Feeling awfully sorry about my pitiful performance, I decide to do something good 8212; clean up. Clothes, diaries, papers, old greeting cards and pictures and small knick-knacks that I keep because I don8217;t have the heart to throw them away fall out of the closet and drawers when I chance upon an old schoolbook. Here was the guy who was such a good-for-nothing 8212; well, the teachers always said so 8212; and was now raking in the moolah. And this picture 8212; that8217;s the girl with the reputation. Every school has one: you never like her but because everyone else does, you acquiesce. Peer pressure, huh. I turn the pages and remain lost in the sands of time, reaching out for a big bar of Mars. What about this topper who would never have topped had it not been for the fact that he was the teacher8217;s pet? Suddenly, I feel like hell. I8217;ve failed the envy test. It8217;s some time later that I realise that Mars means gluttony with a capital G.

Looks like there8217;s no way I can stay off sin. But then again, Rome wasn8217;t built in one day, was it? Maybe this is one way I can learn patience. A day at a time, that8217;s the way to go. But by mid-day, I8217;ve changed tack: an hour at a time is the only way to go about things.

Maybe things will be better if I stopped thinking so much. I switch on the TV. Hmm. Wasn8217;t Amitabh just fabulous in Mili? I8217;ve always thought so. Was that lust or what? Forget it, I just laze, for want of the will to do something. Sloth now. Things seem to be going my way, barely, till I go to the shops and spot a pair of shoes that I just have to have. Covetousness! Well, a bad, bad day but at least I have avoided the pride pitfall. Turning the pages of a magazine, I briefly covet a car, am envious of PYTs who seem to have it all. This was clearly not working out. More importantly, did I want it to?

For what8217;s life without a little bit of sin to spice it up? Would heaven mean so much if you couldn8217;t go on an impromptu shopping spree or rage against someone without thinking that you were sinning? Let8217;s leave the original sin to the likes of Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie. I8217;ll settle for the seven everyone knows about.