A recurring flashback-one helluva day!!

"All the single ladies, all the single ladies...." the alarm almost punctured my eardrums.

Though Bangalore is practically warm throughout the year I prefer to have the fan on at full speed and cover myself up with a sheet 'head to toe'. I dreamily woke up with my eyes half shut and as usual the first thing I did was drink a glass of water. Well today was different;I could taste some substance other than smooth flowing water in my mouth!!

"yikes!! what the hell is this" my eyes as big as a pug dog's now look down into the glass. There in the half filled glass by now was small black-brown dots when looked closely revealed a huge number of ants... can you believe this ANTS for pete's sake!! Darn now my water filter has been ant infested for God knows how long. But why choose my filter when I managed to have a refill just a day earlier.

Nonetheless this reminds me of a funny baby story my grandpa used to tell me. when ever my glass of milk had an ant fall into it he would say"thats ok puttar, whenever you eat an ant it means that you would make a great swimmer when you grow up. Plus they dont hurt once they have drowned", and then I would drink it all including the poor dead ant sometimes!! Yeah I dont believe that story anylonger, but the fact is I cant keep a count of how many ants I may have swallowed over the years.

Well for those of you reading who dont really know me: let me tell you a little about myself. I have been gifted with 'verbal diaohria', live large in all aspects but always into denial (largely) which precisely makes me proportionate in everyway and in no way would I reveal my weight to you now if thats whats going on in your head. Born to a Punjabi mom and a Karbi father from Assam has definately been the reason for my loudness (which obviously comes from mom) and mushy where the heart is concerned (I guess thats from dad... no idea).

I picked up the paper from my front portico, my throat still tingling with the 'ant-eeek' feeling. I did all my morning chores ( now dont expect me to explain them in details!!), and leave for work by 8:30 am on this lovely sunny day.

Normally it would take me 25-30 min to reach my work place but with the awesome traffic here and falling victim to road rage, it took me close to 45min to 1 hr to finally get my arse off the car seat!!

Fahad is coming today and boy I have gotta leave early. It's weird because I barely reached office and I have already begun scheming ways to bunk and leave early.

I could see Reshma from the corner of my eyes squeeling-dragging her chair towards my desk. "Hi, so are we going swimming from tomorrow?" Reshma and I enrolled ourselves with the catholic club swimming classes under the guidance of Nisha Millet & Bikramjit. "Yeah baby, all ready to swim like an ant". Oops did I just say ant!!

Then Reena walks in. Reena has been with the bank for almost a zillion years, happily married with two kids and her husband works in the same building as ours. "Hi Girls! so planning your slimming classes?" Actually the sole reason for enrolling was for us to shred the fixed deposits we both have gathered over the years. "yea, and we are so excited!!", it sounded almost like a chorus.

After a few boring hours of running around it was finally lunch time. We a group of 6 friends normally meet up for lunch in the cafeteria and share not only our tiffins but also office gossip which normally involves the other women at work, our bosses and about how much our job sucks. But today Cheryl and I planned to go gift shopping for her friends baby shower. So we decided to have lunch early and leave so that we can get back on time. Anu was on leave and Reena was stuck with work so Reshma, Cheryl and I headed downstairs to the cafeteria and gave a call to Mini to come and join us who said she would come in another 5 mins. We were almost done with our lunch when Mini finally showed up. And this is when Mini got angry and furious that we didn't wait for her and walked out infuriated. Oh come-on why are some woman so difficult. Well actually most.. I mean all women are difficult! True confession of a disillusioned woman.

Just as Cheryl n I entered the office my boss calls me from Mumbai wanting to know why I have not sent the data he needed? I now was too afraid to ask him for a half day and so after our brief conversation we hung up and I got back to making the report he needed. My boss is a nice man and we even went out for a drink and dinner when he visited Bangalore the last time. But when it comes to work he wants perfection in the most miserable-desirable way! So the sneaky thing I did was submit the report and leave office making sure no one noticed and went on mutton hunting for dinner.

It was my very first meat purchase and boy was I nervous. I just stood there in front of the butcher watching him slice and cut the pieces while I knew there were numorous eyes on me. I twitched and petruded my butt a little outward to give my posture some grace and twingled my hair around my finger. Once paid and packed I turned around to look at who may be looking at me but instead there were a bunch of uncle-like men with really oil-tanned skin and dirty yellow-brown teeth looking and smiling at me. I felt this rush of embarassment and dejection all at once and could feel my throat run dry and cheeks turn red. 'what was I thinking? my boyfriend was coming home after two weeks and here I was looking for attention! Darn Maggie grow up you're 28 yrs old' I thought to myself.

Though I love cooking I hate the part where I cry crocodile tears because of cutting onions. But the dinner was finally ready. I got a call from office asking me why I had left early without intimating anyone, I ran out of excuses and ended up saying that I was in no mood to talk and would speak to them tomorrow. I know now that my sneaky valour is going to cost me dearly.

Fahad was just in time for dinner.We hugged for a while and kissed. He had his bath and asked me to do the same. At that time I didn't really know why he asked me to do that in particular but while dinner I could get an awkward odour coming from me!! I was smelling of sweat(how sick can this get), mutton, and onions!!

I felt so embarassed and grabbing my towel and fresh clothes and not to forget a bottle of deo walked into the bathroom. By the time I finished scrubbing, shaving my arms and legs , making sure I was smelling good:Fahad was already fast asleep. I guess his train journey had really tired him down.

My personal psychoanalysis tells me that when I try too hard to make my day perfect, I am the one responsible for ruining it all!!.

Maggie