People often ask me what I miss the most after returning from a week-long vacation. Is it the mountains, the weather, the scenic views, or the fresh air? No.

The breakfast buffet and Not because of the food.

Because it is perhaps the last remaining institution in human civilization where life offers options instead of responsibilities.

For seven glorious days I wake up, brush my teeth, walk into a dining hall and place myself between aroma and possibilities. There is toast. There is idli. There is fruit. There is tea. There is coffee. There are pancakes. There are things I don’t even know how to pronounce. Nobody needs anything from me. Nobody wants a legal opinion. Nobody wants emotional support. Nobody wants a document drafted urgently. Nobody wants me to settle a dispute between two grown adults who collectively possess the emotional maturity of a malfunctioning toaster. My biggest challenge is deciding whether the watermelon should be consumed before or after the dosa.

That, my friends, is freedom.

Then vacation ends.

And before I can even mentally prepare myself for the upcoming week, I find myself driving three hundred kilometres over the weekend.

Three hundred.

I had spent an entire week trying to reconnect with nature and inner peace.

Now I was reconnecting with highway and people who believe indicators are a Western conspiracy.

So, I have reached home.

And life, which had patiently waited for my return like a debt collector, immediately resumed operations.

The maid, who receives her salary with Swiss precision every month, had apparently decided that cooking is overrated. According to modern domestic philosophy, the best food is not food cooked by the cook. The best food is food cooked by the person paying the cook.

Interesting business model.

Then there was the kitchen door.

A kitchen door that had simply decided it no longer wished to lock. Not broken. Not damaged. Just emotionally unavailable.

Naturally, I called maintenance.

Now maintenance in a housing society is a fascinating concept. They charge amounts that suggest they are maintaining the International Space Station. Unfortunately, when actually required, they disappear into a dimension unknown to science.

Apparently they were unavailable.

Why?

Nobody knows.

At this point I suspect maintenance staff are like rare migratory birds. People claim to have seen them, but nobody can produce evidence.

Then came the clothes.

The clothes had to be dried again because rain has now become a full-time occupation. What used to be weather has become a lifestyle choice. Every time the clothes are dried, the clouds hold a committee meeting and decide otherwise.

Naturally, nobody in the house knows how to operate the drying cycle.

Except the maid.

The same maid who has already outsourced cooking responsibilities back to management.

So there I was, standing in front of a machine I legally own, financially paid for and physically accommodate in my house, trying to understand how to dry clothes.

A process which apparently now requires certification and field training.

And somewhere in the middle of all this chaos I realized I wanted to do something truly radical.

I wanted to sit down and watch television. Not work. Not solve problems. Not answer calls.

I wanted to watch that Apple TV show about widows and bays and whatever rich people are doing these days.

I wanted to watch that Prime series everyone says is fantastic and contains enough sex scenes to single-handedly revive cable television.

I wanted to watch that Netflix show the entire world has been discussing for the last six months.

Do you know what I got to watch instead? Absolutely fucking nothing.

Because the bathroom tap had decided that water conservation begins at home and had chosen to keep all available water to itself.

And hey, remember maintenance? Those magnificent creatures? Those guardians of civilization? Those heroes of infrastructure? They are basically Santa Claus. They show up once a year. If you’re lucky.

And even then there’s no guarantee they actually fix anything.

By this point I had already survived an entire week of dal-chawal because my stomach had chosen violence during the vacation.

And somehow, incredibly, astonishingly, offensively, the universe looked at this situation and concluded that what I really needed was more dal-chawal.

That was the moment I understood the true purpose of vacations.

Vacations do not relax you.

Vacations simply remind you how ridiculous your normal life has become.

For one week you live like a guest.

I miss standing in front of unlimited options while absolutely nobody expects anything from me.

Then you return home and immediately resume your role as unpaid operations manager for a small failing republic. Which is why people are wrong when they think I miss the buffet. I don’t miss the food.

Because at home the buffet has only one item.

Responsibility.

And somehow that tray never runs empty.

Later.