How I Spent My Bonus Holiday

Continued from here

I had activities planned for Monday too, that I meant to cancel if I didn’t recover from my trip. But I felt okay, except for a slight backache, so I kept to my plan. First, I met a friend for lunch at Silk Route in Koregaon Park. She was someone I had worked with in my previous job, and we grabbed the chance to catch up. We had an enjoyable lunch in an empty restaurant – I had to remind myself that it was Monday, and the rest of the world was working. I had set up the date, but my friend insisted on paying the bill: a thoughtful gesture that caught me unawares. I promised to treat her another time to make up for it.

Then I visited the Guy’s mom and sister. They left for Gujarat yesterday along with little Elf, and I wanted to say bye. I spent a couple of hours there, then left for Vani’s.

With my several rickshaw rides, I found I was out of change when I reached Vani’s. I had nothing between a 500 rupee note and a ten rupee one. So I ran up to Vani’s, and as soon as she opened the door, asked, “Can you lend me fifty rupees?” She did, after she was done laughing at having to pay me for coming to her house.

Vani and I sat over our spreadsheets and documents for a couple of hours, sorting out the information of the new students we interviewed and deliberating on whom to take out of the majority that we hadn’t been sure of. We found that we had interviewed seventy new students. We would have to turn away many of them, but we managed to sort them out to our satisfaction.

I got home at around half past eight. As I walked from the gate to my flat, I felt something unfamiliar against my thighs. I was wearing cargoes with numerous pockets and had stuffed my essentials – phone, hanky, keys, wallet – in them, feeling very liberated all day at not carrying a bag. I felt the offending pocket and drew out a couple of notes – a fifty and a ten.

That minor goof aside, I had a very enjoyable day, as enjoyable as it could be without the Guy around.