It could be a shop floor. Or a factory. An industrial wreck.
But it's not. They have cheery seats and monkey faces. And free drinks. And us.

There is so much warmth at my table. My insides feel fuzzy and my cheeks glow. I can tell. They play music to which I mentally dance. I am wearing a straw hat and my heart on a sleeve. I am dancing around a tree, or a fire in the middle of the forest. The air is crackling with the enthusiasm of so many people.

There is affection and food and sweet concoctions that make their way to my head, slowing it to a point where everything feels huge and everything consumes me. There are random hugs and squeals. There is laughter that feels like being hugged in the cold.
There is us. At my table.

The bathrooms have nuts and bolts. Which is which. Which is either. Or none. We hop down the stairs with playful abandon, because we are chuffed and full and the trying week is now behind us.

There are few things I can say right now.

Except that the weather has caught me off guard; it's pretty pleasant for a Bombay afternoon.
And that my bed is a sea of disconnected things, like phones and bedsheets and demure books hiding behind pillows.

The Sunday is what it usually is - lazy but restless, comfortable but painfully lethargic.
Nothing I can do will change that.

There are few things to say.
The afternoon is slipping from under me and I know that in a second it'll be dark outside. 

I ate my way through an apple, a cereal bar and a bowl of sweet-corn soup.

It's that feeling of hunger bordering on boredom when you're home too long and then you start to walk around trying to entertain yourself with food. It was only a good thing that I didn't open my fridge and find a chocolate cake there because I am pretty sure I would have eaten in, in fact with questionable vengeance.

It's evening now and I decided that I will behave like a grown up. So I made myself some ginger tea and had it in a slow, calculated manner with dry biscuits. Then I put on a face-pack and read the newspaper. Now, I'll go and ponder about some serious stuff in silence, like bills and global warming. Or the rising food prices and the traffic.

Wake up and eat a bowl of wheat flakes dry.
Then drink the low-fat milk because you forgot it in your cereal.
Wash the bowl half-heartedly, humming theme songs to TV shows.
Then crawl back into bed and doze off for a bit, while the Sunday sounds creep into your room from outside.
The sounds and smells from the kitchen below and the sounds of brunch goers with clacking heels.
Crack your eyes open and shut them quick before you feel the need to get up.
Have lunch - rice and dal and mango pickle. And cold water with the glass making rings on your table.
Watch the afternoon weave in and out of your lethargy with sunshine and freshly downloaded TV shows.
Breathe in the Sunday and do nothing intellectual because you have the rest of the week to do that. 

Lazy Sundays where you never really get off the bed.
The sheets tangle up in small heaps at the corners and you watch show after show on your laptop, your eyes half open and the sun shut away by thick curtains.

The only time you drag yourself out of bed is to make trips to the kitchen and the bathroom. Even those you race through so that you can get back in the warm comfort of the mattress as soon as possible.

The times both flies and crawls. The room becomes warmer and then eventually colder. The light outside drops and the yellow harsh bulbs crop up, like unwanted cops at a party.

It's soon time to sleep and all you have to do is roll over, shut the lid of the laptop and close your eyes. 

The rain in my head.

I am listening to the sound of rain.

I also shut my eyes and imagined sitting under the awning of a defunct store, somewhere off the mud road in rural India. Sitting there with my legs drawn close to my stomach. Up ahead in the distance, there is someone walking with a steel bucket. It's only a figure from where I sit, because the white rain blurs everything. 

The sound is beautiful; the muted plop of the rain on the red soil and the faraway thunder.

 

In my head, I am sitting there alone. Writing probably, on damp paper with pencil. I don't know what I'd write. I am taking slow, calculated breaths. I am taking in the smell of the rain, in its purest form, free of smoke and garbage and other urban worries. 

When I open my eyes, the rain has stopped. I am back where I started, but I am a happier person. 

The Sunday has passed me by.

It's over and it didn't feel like a holiday. It felt trying. Now, the sun has set and the street lights have come on, with all the moths hovering around them. The deserted roads have a few people but they scurry around.

Tomorrow, the week will be upon us. The Monday will be as trying as today, only in a different manner. 

Everything is shuttered down.
The roads are empty. The people are inside their homes, sleeping or cursing the lack of food or entertainment.

The men on the street stand around in vigil. They throw cold glances at those driving around, wait for them to do something even remotely incriminating so that they can be yelled at. I am standing at my window watching all this and wondering if they will hold it against me that I am looking around aimlessly.

The TV channels are blacked out. When you turn them on, there is a screen full of black and white angry grains. The only thing you can watch is the news where there's only so much to watch.

The forced day of nothingness is the worst; it takes the fun out of it. 

The sliver of the sky that I can see from my bed is now full of birds.
Not just the everyday variety but some pretty colourful ones. If I was driven enough, I'd get out the set of binoculars that my parents bought a while ago but I am not.

I have been lying here long enough to have seen the lemon yellow sky turn pink. I have lost count of the number of trashy videos I have watched to milk the free Sunday download scheme. My back has fallen asleep from having slept so long.

My Sunday thoughts are disconnected.
I'll probably lie here until I doze of again, but not before I have whined about the onset of the Monday blues.

The Sunday evening was lost somewhere between having hot tea spilled on my foot at a coffee shop and eating food that made us instantly drowsy.

In the cab, all of us were silent. The green signal lights looked very lightening like through my half shut eyes. The jagged fluorescent lines traveled across the smoke into the trees. The people around us spoke loudly and cheerfully. I remember shutting my eyes, amidst all the chattering and car honks, wishing to fall asleep for a long, long time.

The most depressing part of the week now surrounds me, while I try and find things to distract myself. The Monday morning blues never spare me, but somehow they also keep getting more difficult to handle with every passing week.

It's beginning to rain outside. My room is dark and soon enough I will be asleep. I know I have said this before, but some days I am the happiest when I am asleep. 

You can never win with Sundays.

If you're home, by the time evening comes around, the words and pictures on your laptop screen all blur into one depressing tangle. Then, your parents mock you about having no social life. Then you watch the evening grow darker and all the thoughts about Mondays and the future that you've ignored all day come and dance around you.

If you step out, you have to battle the whole city to even get to some place. It's like hundreds of people and hundreds of cars collaborate to make as much noise as is possible. Then while you put up a brave front with the traffic, it begins to pour and before you know it, you're covered with dark rain water and muck. Somewhere along the evening, the folks call you and ask you to come back early and yell about how you're never home, just for good measure.

Once you do get home, you realise that the Sunday is over and the next Sunday seems really far away. Then you look forward to it anyway, even though this one was just about average.

Grumpy fragments.

It's raining. Everything outside seems darker than it possibly is.

I am on my bed with the laptop on my stomach, watching stuff and willing the internet speed to go up. It's a lazy afternoon - something I look forward to all week and when it actually comes around I don't know what to do with myself after a point.

There were several attempts at writing, but everything sounded either insincere or unbearably trite. I looked through old things, mails and writing pieces that could perhaps inspire me into writing something that wouldn't make me gag. Instead, I stumbled upon all the college memories that made me more wistful than I'd expect to be.

It's the monsoons. They make me gloomy.

Blueberry yogurt is delicious but that's just a blatant effort to change the subject.

There is a feeling of dread; or perhaps a watered down version of it. That's how I feel on most Sunday evenings.

It's raining and the dancing leaves outside make patterns against the window pane. There is a music playing in the other room and it is a very comforting, faraway sound. I am eating a green apple cut into very tiny pieces. I wish I could close my eyes and make this last for a long time to come.

Then soon enough, I realize that tomorrow is Monday and the feeling of dread bubbles inside of me. I think of the work, the crisp smell that I associate with air-conditioned offices and the long phone calls with people who have condescending tones.

Soon enough a countdown will begin for the weekend and all too soon that will be over too. And repeat. 

The weather is deliciously gloomy. We stand, coughing, in the smoky shop which sells rolls. It rains ferociously behind us. The rain water rolls of the umbrella onto my bare arms while we walk out of the store looking for an auto.

There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the evening, but I know I'll remember it later. In the memory categories in my head, this will come under non specific memories.

There is always a strange feeling at the bottom of my stomach on Sunday nights. Mostly impending Monday morning blues. It is, as of now, mercifully overpowered by the smell of food and the tingling feeling that comes with knowing that I'll look back at this stray memory in the future. And that it will make me smile.