Weekend rituals

How to distinguish your weekends from the work week

My weekdays always end with a walk in the park. But I never ever venture out for a stroll in my regular haunts over the weekend because of how crowded they get at this time. This is the time that families, groups of friends, and giddy lovers get to spend time outdoors, enjoying a slap-up picnic in the great outdoors or just searching out cozy corners to have a bit of a cuddle. So, not only are the parks overcrowded, so are the parking lots and I can’t help but feel (I know, it’s terribly selfish of me, but there you go) that my world has been taken over by outsiders.

 

So, over the years, I have developed a weekend ritual of my own. Saturdays are working days (also the day on which I file this column) so I don’t do anything special. But Sundays have a rhythm of their own. It all begins with a late breakfast, nothing too elaborate, but something that involves a bit of cooking (instead of lathering on butter on a piece of toast). Then it’s time for a long shower and shampoo, followed up with some serious moisturizing. The grooming session ends with some quality time with my beloved Dyson airwrap to get my hair just so. 

 

The highlight of my Sunday is always lunch, the venue being agreed upon with my husband well in advance. It could be a pizza in the balmy sunshine of the courtyard at the Italian Cultural Centre; it could be a mysore masala dosa at Sagar Ratna; it could be a slap-up Chinese meal or an assortment of chaat. It doesn’t really matter what we eat as long as we don’t eat at home. Having lunch out has become a non-negotiable part of my Sunday routine.

 

A follow-up snooze is not mandatory, though it becomes inevitable if we have had a drink or two. But for the most part, Sunday afternoons are spent in my favourite armchair, reading a book, with a big pot of Chinese tea by my side. I don’t move from this spot until it’s time to make dinner. And Sunday dinner is always at home, more often than not a one-pot meal – a quick stir-fry, a basic risotto, or even a masala khichdi – because we are still so full from the enormous lunch.

 

I know that there are people who will be appalled by just how lazy my Sundays are. These are the kinds of people who wake up early to go play a round of golf, maybe put in a tennis lesson or two, or just hit the gym. Then, there are those who spend this day doing all the household chores that have accumulated through the week: clearing out the cupboards; dusting the bookshelves; doing laundry; and the like. But what can I say? I would rather put in extra hours during the week to finish all this stuff so that I have Sunday as a clear day in which I do nothing.

 

The Italians have a phrase for this. They call dolce far niente, loosely translated as the sweetness of doing nothing at all, or the pleasure inherent in pure laziness. And that one phrase sums up my Sundays – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.