Imagine, for a moment, that you are the mother of a sleep-loving (euphemism for lazy) daughter who will not get out of bed before she has had her daily ten hours of sleep. Imagine also that you have to get her and your other, equally talented in the art of sleep offspring, to Sindhlab to get a blood test and the labs close in an hour. To top it off, it's a sunday, the one day when the lazy and non-lazy alike can sleep in on the grounds of "It's a sunday, for god's sakes, let me sleep!", come hell or high water.

Anyhow, personally I don't mind sharing my blood for a good cause. It's just the extraction part I don't like. I'll admit it: the sight of blood makes me queasy, which is a lot better than fainting everytime someone takes a few CCs out of you, like a certain person I know does, but it still doesn't make me a big fan of medical tests beyond the "stick out your tongue" variety. This trip, therefore, in addition to ruining by sunday morning sleep in session, was not one I was looking forward to at all, and neither were me siblings, probably for the same reasons.

What's a mum to do? First, she probably thought, let's tackle the smallest one. Easy enough, all you have to do is turn off the AC and fans and close the door and leave. Five minutes later, sweating and muttering about barbarians who deprive their children of Air Conditioning, little sister emerges from the room.

Next, it's my little brother's turn who is so unaffected by heat or any of his other senses while sleeping that he could sleep through several friends wrestling on the floor while Tiesto blares on his stereo and his sister place his own smelly socks near his face. Not an easy task, but Mum has several tricks up her sleeve, mind you. She goes to the kitchen and tells the housekeeper to go tell off the cleaning lady aka the Maasi, who just happens to be cleaning out brother's room, on how she did not clean the bathrooms properly. Within three minutes a full on war has erupted with the Maasi yelling in a thick accent about how the Housekeeper isn't "the boss of me" and the Housekeeper yelling right back about how the Maasi is a "lazy, good for nothing woman who has to be supervised for hours every morning". As both scream on at each other, looking dangerously close to swatting each other with a jharoo, little brother jumps up and leaves his room, complaining to a smiling mum about the two and goes off in a rage to visit the loo.

And now remains the biggest challenge, the elder daughter with the dangerous ability to adjust to the change in temperature and go right back to sleep several times before throwing in the towel and finally leaving the bed. Unfortunately, Mum has a plan. Opening up her closet and taking out all the new clothes that have yet to be given to the tailor and laying them on sleeping daughter's bed, she summons my aunt and both sit down at opposite sides of me and begin to loudly discuss exactly which one would suit whose complexion better, followed by an in-depth debate on what the best age is for getting daughters married and rounding off with a detailed gossiping session about the latest married couples and how they met and how the rishta was finalized and who was having what problems with what bahu. This is more than eldest daughter can take and she attempts to put a cork in either the discussion or her own life by rolling out the bed with a great deal of force and plopping down on the floor, wrapped in a quilt and much resembling one of those chicken rolls at Khadda Market. Mum has no mercy and continues animated discussion of eligible young men for eldest daughter and what each candidate does for a living, has studies and what they wore on the first day of grade school. Eldest daughter admits defeat and retires to the bathroom to change.

All three children meet in the corridor as they grab the keys and practically run out the door in anticipation of the peace and quiet of a blood testing session ay Sindhlab.