Back to the future

While crossing the bed and entering the bath, Ram noticed the crumpled bedsheets on the bed.

“Whoa” he muttered and started folding them to put them in place. He remembered the previous night when his son and wife had used them unfolding it , which was folded in the day before by him. Now he is again at it.

The same thing follows now. Bath, breakfast, bye to office, back home and bed. That is why we like watching movies or going for shopping he thought. They seem to occur so rarely in our lives and hold the key to the other part of existence which is all those ‘B’s above.

“When I was a kid, I used to jump at every possibility. And every moment was a possibility. Where did it all go?” He brought in Sita into the fold of his thoughts. Sita had just come upstairs, of course, to keep some toy or something in its place displaced by the kid.

This is a subject that touches the very core of Sita. She has been bitten by this a lot more than Ram. “ Just imagine the millions of folks right now folding bed sheets around the world” she said and laughed heartily.

Ram started laughing and it became uncontrollable, the thought of joining the millions in folding bedsheets. He was now ROFL.

“This is sheer madness” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“This existence. And the way we have made this out to be” he said.

“So many things have entered our lives, so many objects and so many things to maintain and put it in its place, maintain them, else it becomes a living hell. And the irony is these objects were supposed to help us. This bed is supposed to help us have a cosy sleep, these lights to help us read, these laptops, mobiles, books, printer, TV, washing machines, Cars and on and on..but instead, they all come to torment us in many ways than you realize. They keep failing, we keep fixing them. They keep moving off, we keep putting them in place. They keep lagging behind and we keep upgrading them. There are warranties, service people, marketing calls, emails, financial transactions, and a whole lot that comes with them and enters our lives when all I wanted was to watch a damn Television program.

Don’t you see where this is all heading? This crazy existence?”

Ram paused. He loves to speak long sentences to convey his mind. And often Sita loses patience. So this time he ensured he comes a full round trying to end it clearly without leaving it half way.

“So throw all of them out?” She asked.

“Will we miss them at all?” he asked.

“No not at all. I guess the best thing is to start all over again. Just get rid of everything in your life that seem to occupy a tiny spot in your brain and start fresh all over. As if you just got out of college or something. In fact, if you say yes, I can give many of these to the housemaid and the fellow doing the laundry at the street corner” She said.

Ram thought for a while and agreed it to be the best thing that would help him manage the entropy.

Next few hours went in listing out things into the OLXs of the web and some kept for distribution.

Got rid of the TV. Got rid of the washing machine. Got rid of a old laptop. Got rid of the inkjet printer which had to be repaired twice without using it much. Got rid of cameras that load films, mobiles, medicines. Got rid of a lot of clothes, Got rid of lot of utensils in the kitchen. Got rid of furnitures from aeons. Got rid of a old car, a bi-cycle and a ton of toys. He deleted a whole lot of contact numbers on his mobile.

“I can smell freedom” he chuckled.

Suddenly the house looked quite empty.

“OK. I need to get back to work” he turned on his laptop.

He saw the stock market is doing fine. He logged in to find his stock position. He saw there was this amazing trailer of the new movie. He watched that.

His mobile screamed of a chat message from his friend. He briefly responded to it.

There was an offer on the vacation he wanted to do in his inbox. He could not resist seeing it.

Ram was now very busy. Like he was yesterday. Like he was the day before.

Sita shouted from the kitchen. “Hey Ram, did you see that vegetable cutter?”.

It took some time to sink in for Ram. He then shouted back.

“It was given off in that OLX sale”