In the Sharma household, the day didn’t begin with an alarm clock. It began with a war .
At 7:30 AM, the real drama unfolded.
At precisely 5:58 AM, three-time national under-17 badminton runner-up, Mrs. Meera Sharma, would slide out of bed with the stealth of a cat burglar. Her mission: secure the single gas burner that worked perfectly for making filter coffee before her mother-in-law, Rajji, claimed it for her steel doodh-patti .
“Beta,” Rajji said, without turning around, “the milk is boiling. Your coffee will have to wait. The sun waits for no one, especially not for a caffeine addict.”
“In the same place you left it—under your bed, next to last week’s rotten apple,” Rajji said serenely from her rocking chair, sipping her doodh-patti with the satisfaction of a chess grandmaster.
“Please, Mummyji.”