I’ve been back in college for four days now and over the weekend – I finally overcame my fears and inhibitions, and completed the very very difficult task. That’s Right. I cleaned up my room.
Scoff all you want. But this a months’ worth of accumulated grime and dust that I am talking about. The thing is, we had our semester break and my dear old room has had little airing or dusting in the meantime.
People, who have seen the condition of my room in its various avatars, will find this supposed preoccupation with cleanliness slightly out of character. (In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my alcove mates’ almost philosophical musings on a messy room in a recent poetry competition was inspired by the state of affairs in my room) A misunderstanding, for sure. There is difference between messiness and cleanliness – subtle yes, but it’s there!
Over time, I have skipped from one lame escuse to another, depending on whom I am giving it to. People who accidentally pop into my room, are always treated to an airy dismissive wave of the hand, as if brushing all the stuff on the floor under the bed – “It’s been one of those weeks” I say with a brave brave smile and the uninitiated are easily fooled.
“Organised Mess” I tell the others stoically; the ones that know that the week, month or even the year has little to do with the condition of my room. They give me hard stares, shake their heads in grave reproach and mumble about ‘pigsties being neater’ under their breath. Some of them are so overcome by it that they look me in the eye and say the dreaded words “think of what your mother would go through if she saw your room”.
All right So I admit it. My room is hardly perfect. But like I said, “messy” and “clean” are different. I keep my room clean, more than some of my More-Books-On-The-Bookshelf-Than-On-The-Floor-Friends and the whole malfunction, as far as arrangement is concerned, is all the Universities fault. There are vile evil days like “submission day”, “due date”, “day of viva” “exam date” that get thrown around with alarming frequency and destroy whatever little “arrangement” my poor room has.
My mother’s sentimentality aside, I have this to say in defense of my room – that my room’s got character – it was allegedly haunted ( never seen nothing, except a an arrow on the wall and “Lick me” written on it now lost under a host of pictures.) It’s weirdly angled so that it looks bigger than the standard hostel room, and miraculously enough it seems to find some place or the other for the copious amount of junk, that I cannot seem to find any use for but apparently can’t live without, I wasn’t kidding about organised mess either, for there is a wacky order in there…somewhere.
Like I said my room’s got character – you just have to look beyond the clutter just a bit.
