HYDERABAD: Jealousy is a very difficult emotion to deal with – especially if it is irrational. I’m a 28-year-old who works a good job, follows a nice passion and writes a column. What can I possibly be jealous of, right? But I am jealous of everyone who gets a summer vacation.
No, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who looks at kids playing in the street during summer holidays and gets envious. They totally deserve it. Mostly because they have no idea what’s coming. They’re totally unaware that medulla oblongata and mitochondria aren’t gonna help them through their lives and are also yet to find out that CTCs and in-hand salaries are two drastically different things. So they deserve their play-time in the sun (which is also getting hotter every year).
I used to be jealous of teachers and lecturers – who despite getting a discounted summer vacation – got a vacation. But then I found out how much teachers get paid and I used that number to soothe my jealous heart. My irrational jealousy is directed towards the water heater in my bathroom. It is the only entity in the adult world to always get a summer vacation. And guess what? When it works, it just works a part-time job for maybe a maximum of an hour a day. That too, just for two seasons. Most of the time, it’s just sitting by the ventilator (window in the water heater world) enjoying the good life.
Every time I go in for a shower in the summer, I see it taunting me. Because I have to go out, navigate through the ever-increasing temperatures of a global warming-hit planet and listen to my over-enthusiastic, under-qualified boss while all it has to do is sit by the window and judge me. Yes, I have shower thoughts about a geyser.
I remember one day in school, our teacher asked us what we all wanted to be when we grew up. I said cricketer without thinking about it much. But that question has haunted me ever since. Every year I ask myself that and every year my brain spits out a new answer. Doctor, engineer and journalist were some of the good answers I got. But now, I realised the best answer was a water heater. I’m a 28-year-old graduate who wants to be a water heater because that’s how jealous it makes me.
So here’s my request. As we bid goodbye to summer and welcome a cold rainy season, make sure you use the geyser to the fullest (and more). For my sake, please ensure this wry judgemental smile is wiped off this electronic equipment’s face and it realises how hard the rest of us actually work. Treat your geyser the same way our teachers treated us right after summer vacation – give it a whole lot of unnecessary work.
Or alternatively, just help me find a job that has a summer vacation. Otherwise, you’re going to find me in one of those electronic stores on sale someday.