Sunday, bloody Sunday

Sunday's a lifeline for us all. The day off from work, school, or college. A day for home, family, rest and peace. Catch up with whatever you can't do during the week. Make the most of it before another grinding week starts. Enjoy yourself, basically. We all experience Monday blues, but for me Sunday has always had this uncomfortable undertone to it. While it's a relief to have time off, it tends to give you this 'going nowhere', purposeless sort of feeling.

Sunday to me has always been like the neighbour we tolerate, but can never quite trust. We simply have to coexist with her because we have no choice; we can't do without her, we appreciate what she has to offer, but the unnamed feeling persists. It's a mystery because everyone else around you celebrates her; you nod your head but can never fully agree. Just as you lie waiting in resignation for what bombshells your neighbour may drop on you, Sunday is the perfect metaphor for the lull before (and after) the storm.

I guess my weird relationship with Sunday started by associating her with homework, or likening it to 'homework day'. Homework was usually the matter of spnding an hour or so in concentration. Try as I did, work would never get done the way I liked it. And it only served as a reminder Monday was coming up. Over the years, my attitude to Sunday has evolved from being a love-hate kind of thing to "well alright, her she comes again".

The 'lazy' aspect of Sunday which people really enjoy is overrated. I too love the idea of being able to wake up at10:30 in the morning just for once in the week. However, i do that on Saturdays as well (apart from the time we have work or college then) and I either get the feeling of freshness, or a desire to return to my comfortable sleep. With Sunday, you feel like getting up but can't drag yourself out of bed. You wrestle with this so much, that by the time you're up you've given yourself a headache. For the rest of the day, it's either depressingly hot or depressingly cold, as if to neutralize the pleasing effects of Saturday's weather. Whatever you feel like catching up on simply won't happen. Everything gets postponed. Life seems to come to a standstill - but only for you. Everyone around you seems to be enjoying a holiday for what it is. Sunday afternoons seem to give you an inexplicable rumble in the stomach. The 'long dark tea times of the soul' as Douglas Adams said.

Sunday isn't all that bad. For example, it's the all sports day of the week. However, when I saw my favourite teams and players sinking to defeat on Sundays, it turned me against her yet again. It's a bit like how in the mid nineties, Indian cricket fans would dread watching those matches with Pakistan at sharjah on Fridays (the local holiday). However much they tried, azzu bhai's team could never win on a Friday. The moment a second match was held on a Monday, they won.

All said and done, a holiday's a holiday, so i can't live without Sunday. I guess it's a question of pushing yourself do do something, to take your mind off the emptiness, as you would do on a Monday or Tuesday. That's why I'm blogging on a Sunday without any apparent thoughts in my head.