That Sunday Morning...

In those hectic working days, just like any other employee, I too wished for a Sunday holiday to enjoy with my family consisting of three members, my wife, my son and me. As most of the offices worked for half a day, on all Saturdays, I was always in a very happy mood since Saturday mornings.

After coming from the office, we used to purchase what all things needed for the week, on the Saturday evening itself, so that I could utilize Sundays, entirely at my home, except for going for an evening walk.

As there were only a few channels, available in TV, it was our practice to hire Video cassettes, at a nominal rent, on a 24-hour basis, with an additional security deposit, on Saturday evening itself, so that we could view various Regional and National films, at our convenience. We preferred Sunday mornings, as the best time to view films. We used to switch on the Video Cassette Player (VCP), connected to the TV, soon after taking our breakfast.

If we were lucky, we would get the best prints of the cassettes, otherwise we had to bear with the poor quality of the pictures and sound, because of the wear and tear of the cassettes.

One Saturday evening, while browsing through the video library, I came across a video cassette of Charlie Chaplin, containing many short films, displayed at the rack. I hired the same immediately and rushed home. We slept at night at the regular time and awoke a little early to see the films. We were all eager to see Chaplin’s old comedy films, without any dialogue, therein. We had seen some part of his short films in the “Doordarshan” earlier. He always looked serious in his actions, while we cannot sit without laughing seeing his any of his comedies.

The next day, we finished our breakfast a little early and switched on the Video Cassette Player, inserting the cassette in its slot. We waited for minutes, and after seeing all the advertisements, finally the show began.

We all laughed together after seeing his wonderful acts every time, waiting to see the next film, one after another. It was like a laughter session in our home. We cannot control but to laugh in unison every time, till our neighbor friend just rang the calling bell and enquired about the reasons for our laughing. He did not wait for our answer, after seeing Charlie Chaplin on the screen of our TV. He came inside and joined us seeing the rest of his films and soon he too started laughing, after a while. He remained in our home until his wife called him.

The show continued for a continuous three hours, we all laughing to our maximum capacity.

Ultimately, we had to place an order for lunch in the nearby hotel for the day, as we were all fully tired of laughing with tears coming from our eyes. I cannot forget that Sunday in my life, when we all laughed together for hours.