A short time ago, after being at TIFR long enough, i noticed that there was a particular degree of peace and tranquil associated with Sunday that was found on no other day. Sundays have indeed been special.
Sundays are a predominantly biblical holiday.It has never particularly existed in Indian culture, i guess.I wonder whether there was a Sunday like day in ancient India or whether they adjusted with the zillion holidays that we anyway have. Of course they dint have an ambedkar jayanthi and a Gandhi jayanthi, but i am sure they had their own set of deities and kings whose birthdays needed to be celebrated.
However,coming back to the modern sunday.....when you are a kid, Its the day of the week where your parents never needed to wake you up.,Sunday mornings were about watching cartoons early in the morning. By the time your parents woke up, the fun degenerated into haggling with your parents over how much time you had to spend watching T.V. versus doing chores at home, bringing civilisation to your room or the even more dreaded thing- studying.
It seems to me, that god- when he designed the sabbath- never actually thought about the modern education systems. After all, Sundays are spent by kids trying to balance the temptations of the television with the not so tempting homework-which has been piled onto you by a merciless teacher.
The homework filled sleepy afternoon Sundays were followed by another social evil- that of being dragged off to visit a set of distant relatives who would always seem to comment about how fast you had grown up or if you remembered as to who they were.Ofcourse! i grow up and ofcourse I dont remember you!. This was generally followed by long discussions between the elders. You would spend hours gazing away at paintings on the wall and wonder as to which looney would want to draw so many cubes and why it all resembled a face. AS time passed and you got more bored, comments on how bored you were never mattered to the parental entities till you of course buzzed them to death about it. There was however another scenario.On rare occasions, when the sun was a smiley and hung lazily in the sky, you could get to visit a house where you there were children whose company you would enjoy.However, here, you would of course be goaded to leave as soon as possible.
Night came swiftly after that. There would be the familiar shouts of "tomorrow is monday", "you haven't done your homework yet!", " why are your shoes so filthy" and so on.....
But anyways, time has changed and I have moved onto a world beyond the Sunday homework and failing which, you had the fears of Monday punishments. The world is more merciful now.Sunday is a day of rest and introspection- a day to catch up on all the sleep and the associated dreams you had...during the week.
Despite all the associated evils, Sunday is the greatest invention of western culture.
