I live alone now, in a house. This means I am now in permanent charge of making a few hundred square-feet of the universe not burn-down, explode, collapse, or breed Ebola. I have responsibilities; I need to make sure bills are paid, I need to know when the garbagemen come, and I need to figure out why neighing sounds come out of my neighbour’s window at 3 am. Like any self-respecting single man, I will probably destroy everything in a six kilometre radius while trying to stay on top of things, if left to my own devices. So, like everyone else, I hired help.

One is a cleaner, the other is a cook. They’re both really sweet ladies, and they have a lot in common. They both get sick a lot, mostly on weekends. 1 is their favourite number, because it’s the one on the calendar that means ‘payday’. And they both have very large families. My cleaner alone has six grandmothers and twelve grandfathers. Heck, seven of them died this year, two within 48 hours of each other on Janmashtmi weekend. But still, it’s a pretty simple system. I pay them both good money, and in exchange, they cook, they clean, and they intensely hate each other.