Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Rs 500 and 8 hours on weekly laundry

If you read the heading and imagine that spending 500 rupees on laundry is something that would happen If I were to send my clothes to the laundry of an expensive hotel ... You are wrong. I am a little too miserly to do that. The next few paragraphs just demonstrate how to spend so much money to just get a machine wash at home.

I used to work for quite some time in Bangalore. Living there with friends meant that I had learnt to gaurd my laundry bag and actually do the laundry all by myself. However when I shifted to Pune things took a whole new turn on the laundry front. My hometown Mumbai is quite close to Pune. It is just about 4 hrs drive from my Pune residence to my parent's residence in Mumbai. Obvisouly weekend was a time to chill out at their place. The first weekend my Mom was very happy to see me. Her happiness showed in her eyes ..."as if her brave son had returned from War".

For Lazy bums like me daily chores are no less than a War. Simple things like cooking, laundry, cleaning the house etc take several hours to do and lots of bravery (imagine having to wash the denim jeans you worn for 3 months without washing). A few hours of mental preparation before going to the WAR to actually do the job. I know most Mom's can do the above chores half asleep or while simultaneously attending to other things like "saas bahu" serials, phone etc. However for a sloth like me they really are war. In that sense my homecoming to was like being back from Vietnam war.

First few weekends were really good. I was treated like a guest at home and in India guests are considered as messengers of the Almighty. Naturally my Mom cooked food as per my liking and made sure I had eaten up right until my belly bulged out. My clothes were taken care of on priority scheduling for the daily machine wash. I didn't have to do any chores at home at all and could just lie on the sofa and watch TV all day. Never during my college days did I have such luzury at home.

I guess good things don't last for ever so also was the case with the VIP treatement I got at my home. My Mom saw through my lazy mind's plan reduce work. Being the great Mom she is I still get to eat a lot, the clothes are also taken care of and I still manage to a lot of nothing by warming the upholstery. However things have taken their course. The twinkle in my Mom's eye has change to more like a sigh of relief and and expression of disinterest. Relief because she is able to see me hale and healthy every time I show up. Disnterest because with me comes my huge back pack full of clothes with that manly odour (read as bad odour of sweat). Some of clothes (my socks and dirty jeans) are treated as if they need to go through special bomb diffusal to prevent harm to others in the house but I get clean clothes nevertheless. I get pushed these days do some daily chores like getting stationaries from nearby shop. I am expected to eat whatever is cooked irrespective of my liking. In short I am treated with as much repect as the other members at home.

Despite the lack of VIP treatement, the benefit of getting your laundry taken care of .. free of charge and with utmost adherence to quality is worth travelling for 8 hours and spending about 500 rupees transportation. I guess spending the time and money to go to Mumbai has more to do with visiting the family but I can't deny the fact that the laundry is often a trigger to plan trips to home sweet home. With that quote .. I know I'll probably have to do a few weeks of laundry myself if my dear Mom reads this.. So sorry Mom .. that's just this Lazy idiots outlook .. please ignore me

2 comments:

  1. Nice write-up again. I also want that I would have been with my mom or just 4hrs from my work place. Anyways great going!!!!;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. :D You would get my story if you just replace 4 hrs by 2 hrs...

    ReplyDelete