The last two weeks have been unbelievably romantic. My maid came for fifteen consecutive days! Life went smoothly. I ate food at proper time and slept at ten sharp, managing to even fall asleep within stipulated fifteen minutes of hitting the sack ruling me out of the list of insomniacs. It’s a different thing that I feel uncontrollably sleepy within an hour of trying to make my soon-to-be-a-teenager son learn mathematics. Though I believe that it’s a fool proof way to slip into bliss of slumber, I haven’t been able to use the method consistently perhaps because my brain has weighed the options and processed the information that trying to make my son study is tougher than tossing and turning in the bed trying to count crawling lizards on the walls in the obscurity of night.
Though the fear of maid disappearing on one fine morning without prior notice looms over my head perpetually, it is during this honeymoon period that I am actually able to ignore it. So I make solid plans of productive days ahead where I would wake up early, do yoga and pursue all known and unknown passions of mine. After all I am highly educated and my time is better utilized making some contributions to mankind (not the company, mind you) rather than punishing my body doing paltry jobs like jhaadoo pocha and bartan.
I am greatly inspired and have decided to do things which will take me a few steps closer to an award or two. For once my husband may also show some hint of jealousy when people start recognizing me in the restaurants and malls, clicking selfies with me because autographs are so old fashioned. I must decide which profile is better for selfies.
’Aaj mein upar, aasmaan neeche’ my mobile rang. I changed my ring tone yesterday as per my mood nowadays. Usually it is ‘tujhse naaraaz nahin zindagi’ and I felt that it was kind of not matching with my aura of late and so I changed it to this one. 
‘Auntiji, aaj mummy nahin aa paayengi. Bahut tez bukhar hai’ my maid’s daughter said in single breath and kept quiet till it filtered through ear-brain barrier which has almost become impervious to any bad news. When Mr Steve Harvey said ‘it was my mistake’, even Miss Columbia would not have been as shocked and disappointed as I am now.
My immediate desire is to use all useful expletives to burn off the sudden burst of energy caused by cortisol release. But remembering that my anger has the same effect as pouring water on a rock, asking my son not to use gadgets or asking my daughter to eat without speaking, I decided not to act upon it. No matter what, I can’t change my destiny especially when my goddess in disguise has chosen to fall ill on this particular day. 
I say ‘fine’ and hang up without even asking when she is planning to give a darshan again since I know all very well that she hasn’t decided till now, when she wants to get well.
I am not a superstitious person. I don’t believe in nazar. I didn’t put a big kaala teeka on my kids’ foreheads or soles, didn’t ever do ‘nazar utaro’ ceremony of my kids even if I thought that only my children looked good and all the babies of rest of the world looked really bad. I never said ‘nazar lagi hogi’ when my babies started howling in the midnight without apparent reason, thinking that probably it was some earache or a bad dream. But this is different. I couldn’t stop myself uttering ‘meri nazar mujh par hi lag gayi’, waking up my hibernating husband. He said ‘what happened? You got too many pimples? I think you should go easy on sweets’.
‘No, maid is ill’ I slumped.
You can see now, why my name was not there in Republic Day award announcements.