Sunday morning

I wonder how Sunday mornings should be spent. I feel a little lethargic, when I’m confronted with the idea of a Sunday morning. It is typically late, grey and very chaotic. There must’ve been a time when I was completely neutral to the concept, when I could only remember table legs. Sunday is the day when my father literally hurls the market in our faces. Lots and lots of dirt covered radish heads, clumped herbs, chilies in polythene packets, always accompanied by lemons and tomatoes, and a bag full of fish and chicken to be washed and sorted and cooked. Late, very late breakfasts and Sunday specials. The crows going at it- while my father cleans the fishes- pecking and fighting. The greyness of the sky seems to permeate our senses, as I hear it being repeated, ‘Sundays, Sundays, Sundays’. It’s a very Sunday-ish Sunday morning.

I wonder if everyone at home feels the same. There’s the man who rakes our leaves and cleans our drains, look. He’ll finish raking and push the bell, twice, making us exclaim who it is. My brother will find him waiting in the garden, and rush back inside to tell my mother. She will invariably emerge in the verandah, grasping a fifty, and ask, in a very loud voice, whether he has finished his work. He will nod. The man can’t hear, and doesn’t speak. While the bag is being lowered, he will wait, disinterestedly, and once it’s within reach, fish out the money. His mouth will be set in a hard line and a frown alight on his brows. He will look up and gesticulate, grunting, for better effect, and make it known that he still needs some more. It’s a habit of his to forget that the last week’s pay has been given.

There will be a lot of light downstairs. All the windows and doors have been thrown open and the dust of the roads when a car passes rises in a fog and jumps right in. There will be an unmade bed, mosquito net hanging half open, messy table tops and a greyness. The walls outside the window will reflect grey, the green of the areca palm will reflect grey, and the neighbour’s wash will reflect grey. It’s a late, lethargic morning.

Discontent simmers in the pans, as the fish surface in the gravy; the herbs have been cut and dried. It’s almost noon, it’s a grey noon. My father dozes with the Sunday specials on his lap, the leftovers drying on his plate. There’s a huge heap in front of the refrigerator, vegetables queuing up to sidle into the bottom tray. There are bottles to be filled, dishes to be cleared. In a flurry of activity, my father awakens, and rushes to the saloon to get his hair cut. Sometimes he drags my brother along. There are clothes to be hung, clothes to be folded. I drift aimlessly, because I’m very grey.

Afternoons are when toilets are scrubbed, tiles wiped, pipes cleaned. My mother lies on the bed, amid clothes and newspapers, she sleeps. There’s a drop of sweat on her brow. Amma shuffles to the sink to get her dentures cleaned. My father’s chest glistens with perspiration. I feel curiously grey. The light starts weakening when we sit for lunch. The smell of fried fish lingers in the air; the pickles ooze oil when flattened by the back of a spoon. The lights are on, because it’s getting dark. I hate it when the lights are on in the middle of the day. The bright orange door loses its glow, and crows alight once again, to peck at our plates. Then, as evening creeps in, the house is silent, grey. It’s not morning any more.