MULLINGS
Easterine Kire
[dropcap]U[/dropcap]nless you are the cleaning lady or the fish-seller, visiting people early in the morning is inarguably impolite and undeniably selfish. This is a proven fact.
We all have our share of early morning visitors. Some are downright obnoxious and add insult to injury by announcing their arrival with a loud shout: “Arre, still not up?” The other category is apologetic, “Kepethapfü, n kebvü thorte derei no mo chüsie mhapuorei chülie kenjüte.”(Translation: Madam, so sorry to disturb you but you are the only one who can help us.) Neither isreally excusable.
What does the early morning visitor want? Something for themselves obviously. It can range from school and college admissions to job placements or prayers for healing and guidance to make a life decision. And they don’t mind putting you to a bit of trouble so that they can get their thing fixed.Early morning visitors remind me of an African saying: When you tell Trouble you have no room for him, he says, don’t worry I have brought my own stool. It’s probably a tad harsh to use this saying on early visitors but it is true that theyare the ones who have deliberately chosen a most inconvenient time to visit.
For young mothers, early morning visitors are like the common cold: unwelcome but unavoidable. Who has not felt irritation when interrupted in one’s morning chores by that all-too-familiar voice? The floors are unswept, and the children’s clothes are not where they should be. Perhaps only you can see the thin film of dust on the coffee table. And perhaps only you can see the clock hands moving on relentlessly. Time is so unforgiving and has no consideration for the fact that you are running late with getting the kids to school on time by no fault of yours.
No ordinary homemaker has time in the morning to socialize with visitors. The multitudinous nature of morning tasks make multitasking seem obsolete. For those who use the milkman’s services, milk boiling cannot be postponed. Tiffin to be made for school going children and a reasonable amount of food forced into young stomachs before they are sent off to school. Even if you don’t have school going children anymore, the morning hours are sacred. When the time order for morning tasks is interfered with, the repercussions last the whole day. After the food ritual is over, the sweeping and swabbing of the house awaits you. Most households have a factory feel about them in the mornings and if this is upset, it will definitely affect production in the sense that the lady of the house will have less time to perform her other tasks. Most of all, her tranquility will be affected adversely the whole day.
One does hear the excuse at work, “Tsiedoü mia kropuo rüna vortadi..” (Translation: This morning some people came really early to the house). The original sentence in Tenyidie is normally left unfinished. Because it is a common enough predicament that the listeners can understand and may feel free to fill in the rest of the sentence themselves.
This is how mornings always start in the households of our ministers and heads of departments. Think of that for a moment. Voters claiming their right of way into the MLAs private lives right from the crack of dawn. Endless cups of tea to be served.(Next time you visit your MLA, take him a kg of sugar. That would be a very considerate gift). Or better still, use the office hours. Why do you want to disturb a man when he has to visit the sanctum sanctorum and do what all ordinary mortals do in the morning?
About time Nagas began to learn to use the office. Make an appointment for an hour convenient to both of you. Visit him or her in the office. Discuss your case there. Keep it business-like and brief. He/She does not need to hear about your view on the constitution, and if needed, you can make another appointment for another day, if your case cannot be completed on the same day. It’s very simpul. Like our Geography teacher used to tell us so many years ago: everything is simpul if you use the right solution. And hopefully we can bid goodbye to that ridiculous practice of interrupting people in the final episode of their dreams or nightmares, whichever the case may be. Stop ruining the ending for everybody yaar.
