Notes on a Monday Morning

Waking up is never fun.

I turn off the alarm after it has snoozed for the fifth time. In a futile attempt at elevating my spirits, I let The Beatles croon through my iPod.

"Here comes the Sun...and I say...it's alright."

Right.

Still in my birthday suit, I brew some jasmine green tea; freshen up and put on a robe to collect the newspaper from my terrace. So what happened in the world today? A train caught fire, no one died. Anna Hazare is giving the Government a run for its money. The Middle East and Africa is still broiling with protest and conflict.

The egg I left to boil is ready; the bacon in the microwave is crisp; the juice has been poured in the glass; the bread leaps out of the toaster, as if wanting to startle me.

I am not grumpy. I am jaded. I am not necessarily cribbing. I am solemnly condemning the comforts of a conventionally good life.

I get dressed. I lock the house and walk out. I start the ignition of the car and let out a little sigh before setting the gear on the first and wearily pressing the accelerator.

This is the beginning of a series of groundhog days: life on a repeat mode.

There is a minor accident, instigating an altercation. The man with the small car is livid. The man with the big car is belligerent. The men in the rest of cars are nonchalant, waiting in queues to squeeze their way out through the by-lane to avoid being delayed.

The radio reads my mind; and that of a thousand others.

"Today, I don't feel like doing anything...I just wanna lay in my bed."

India Gate is a delirious flux of vehicles of all sizes, a whirlpool of traffic, as on any other working day. As my hands and legs work involuntarily, yet in perfect coordination, gallivanting my little red car through the traffic, my mind contemplates inconsequential existentialist conundrums.

What am I doing here? What is the purpose of living such a life? How can I do this everyday for the rest of my life?

In a few minutes, I'll be sitting in my plush wooden cabin, with no windows, dismal green carpets, a smell of cheap room-freshner, an AC which makes me miss summers in summertime, and preparing a list of "things to do" for the day, executing them and then striking them off the list.

Intermittently, I will lapse into a day dream about a parallel universe, where I am snorkeling in my polka-dot bikini in a beatific blue lagoon of a remote tropical island, as the sun rises up the horizon, on a Monday morning.