Meet Saanvi! She can be considered my twin-half just with some extra dozes of laziness and indifference. Whether I am sitting on my wedding throne or there is some giant jumble of Hurricane, typhoon, or Tsunami on its way, we just need to share phone-calls. We call the sister therapy. So just I, bragging about my part and my league of Working-from-home Army, won’t make the mark. She is going to read this too and going to demand a detailed demonstration of her devastating disasters that she deals with daily these days!
Her everyday story again made me realize that we think the other side is always Green and hardly satisfied with anything we treasure. It was a Sunday night when I had dropped a call after dinner, and she sounded lower than usual. “What is it that is troubling you?” I guessed PMS as usual, but No. It was Monday tomorrow, and she was called to work in person. I did not contradict the fact and inside tried to relate with the emotions she was expressing that it was nothing like regular Monday Blues but pretty much of the Battle of Kalinga, 262 BC.
It was nearly 60 days of holiday for her, and being a front-office representative, she did not have the chance to work from home or was rather lucky. But now, it was time to let go of that luck. The air of depression and despair that I felt was not about traveling from home too office but the willpower to gather energy up once again to get back to the routine. I have a habit of delving deep down on any and every statement and craft a philosophy out of it, and moreover, I was an empath. So, get ready for this. As humans, we do wonders and unfeasible tasks in the pressure just because we have to do not admiring ourselves enough and rather underestimating.
Hence, even it might seem a petty concern to many. Still, I could literally feel as she shall be traveling 13 Kms by a hectic break-journey each morning petrified horrified packed in her spacesuit and haste into work sharp at 9. Not easy, you see!
That night she had been up to making up her mind, and I added a few layers of motivation to her stating some other day we all got to go to an office. It was our second home, some are called to work now, and some will be called later and blah. I sensed the utter stupidity and lameness in my consoling statements well and had it not been my sister and anyone else, by now, I would surely be hit by a flying slipper right through the phone right on my face.
But then, you got to do what you got to do! And this is just not another philosophy. I rang her up in the morning, and it was the same old tune, some dark track of evanescence which I too adored but got me irritated at the moment. I was impatient and worried. She didn’t pick at first, but she did the second time. Before transport, she described the road she took to work. It transformed from almost Chowringhee, the busiest junction in the city to Park Street Cemetery. It was pretty obvious, and people spoke about a planet with a strangely peculiar air, all across the globe when they stepped out after the never-ending lockdown that they got used to. But she stressed on feeling it for real. The experience was like being on the sets of American thriller movies, the air of old cemeteries, or the city of the Deads. She could really connect to the fancy term of ‘Apocalypse!’ It was not a joke.
But on that American thriller set, she was Marjane Satrapi from Persepolis. It was one of the movies that impacted my psyche significantly and I go back to watching it time and again. No, she did mention that she looked like that to me, but I could picture very clearly in my head! Black mask, in fact, doubled mask, long suit, full pants, capped sleeves, thick gloves, headscarf, Gladiator Sandals, maybe, the only normal thing was the bag. I remember her never-changing grey, plain Messenger bag that she found subtle for a taste; no, it did not have any tacky pom-poms on its chain.
“Helloo, Idiot!” I snapped out of the bag and followed her voice staring at my usual boring cup filled with the usual milk-tea that does not add up to my energy-levels to work anyway. The doubled transport fare was the least concern she had in mind at that time. She startled like has seen some anaconda. But that was the bus queue. It was only 7.45 a.m in the morning, and there were near about 32 heads in the line struggling their best to be on that conveyance that was worth more than a Ferrari at that time. Too generous for a bus queue. Before even proceeding the conversation or taking a step forward, she booked an Uber and landed straight to work. Not all firms shall bear the cost of your transport and her’s was one of them. “It was Day 1, what about the rest of the infinite working days Meghna?” She called me back when walking in through the office gate. I was on my so-called work-desk in my own-personal fish market, struggling to focus again. But, my sister’s calls never seemed distraction sand the scenarios in which I would answer them have been described before.
After the usual work hours that day, it was 7:30 p.m when my phone rang. It was her. She was getting a drop from Mathew, the assistant manager. I l had met him once before outside my sister’s office last year. He’s a good man. So, I guessed, as her stop would fall on the way to Mathew’s house, he would not mind giving off the favor every other day my sister needed it.
Usually, after returning home, she gets done with her dinner, the miscellaneous chores, usually nothing or a nap, and rings me up. But it was past 10 today. What was she doing! I picked up the phone and was bored for 60 seconds by that evanescence track again—no answer from her side. After five minutes, she picked up panting and spoke a few words and I got into my shoes of understanding. “The hygiene!” She lived the life of a surgeon and was absolutely ridiculed, exhausted and tired! This was PMS part 2, where she revealed the terrifying horrors of sanitizing, cleaning and washing from palms, hair, bags, lunch boxes, clothes, earphones to safety-pins! “If time is money, they should pay me in six-figures for this Megh! What am I! ” I have been washing the most indescribable things for the past two hours almost.