There are certain household tasks that look simple from a distance, for example folding clothes, opening a steel lunch box, finding medicines from the second drawer, and changing bedsheets.
A married man knows that changing a bedsheet is a full-body workout, an engineering problem, and a sign of how much you love your wife.
The other day, Rekha said, “Rajan, can you change the bedsheet?”
Now, in marriage, this is not a question. It is an order issued by someone who doesn’t need a uniform to command respect.
I should have said, “No, I am busy” but as you know, in marriage, a man says no only inside his head. Outside, he says, “Sure” and goes about his job.
When I walked in, the dirty bedsheet was lying peacefully on the bed and the new bedsheet was folded neatly on the chair. The pillows were sitting there like innocent witnesses.
This is not the sight men like to see when they walk into their bedroom. They want to see their wife in bed whispering seductively, “Come hither, you naughty!”
But that usually happens only in the movies, so let’s move on.
Rekha said, “Change the bedsheet and pillow covers. I’ll just finish something in the kitchen and come.”
This is another trick wives use. They say “I’ll just finish something” and leave you alone in the battlefield.
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No article of mine is complete without a little nostalgia, so let us go back to my childhood.
For a major part of our childhood, we didn’t have to make our beds because we didn’t have beds.
We slept on the floor. The whole family slept in one room, on three mats (pai in Tamil, chattai in Hindi) spread next to each other. That was our sleeping arrangement.
Today people call it minimalism. Back then, we called it not having enough money.
All we had to do in the morning was pick up the mat, roll it up, and place it in the corner of the only bedroom we had.
Incidentally, we never slept in that bedroom because it was too small.
Back then, making your bed was simple.
Later, when we finally had beds, my Armyman father had one strict rule: the moment you got up, you had to make your bed.
You got up, folded the blanket, straightened the bedsheet, arranged the pillow, and made sure the bed didn’t look like a pigsty.
Back then, I thought my father was just being unnecessarily strict.
Many decades later, I heard about Admiral William H. McRaven, the retired US Navy Admiral, who famously said in his 2014 University of Texas commencement speech: “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
Apparently, making your bed gives you a small sense of accomplishment, teaches you that little things matter, and prepares you to take on bigger tasks during the day.
When I heard that, I realised that my father was not torturing me. Instead he was training me, for the day I would get married.
Unfortunately, the training did not fully work on me. Because today, when Rekha asks me to change the bedsheet, I feel like changing the topic.
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I picked up the new bedsheet and opened it but soon enough realised that this was not a normal bedsheet.
It was one of those fitted bedsheets, which come with elasticated corners or edges that wrap snugly around your mattress.
In a way, these fitted bedsheets are like readymade blouses…easy to wear, but not classic. But we are digressing.
A regular bedsheet has the attitude of a smart kid from a small town who comes to a big city, studies hard, gets a job, and starts sending money home to help his parents.
A fitted bedsheet has the attitude of a city-bred kid who starts working only because he wants to install a Burmester High-End 4D Surround Sound system in the Mercedes his father gifted him on his 20th birthday.
And that’s why I hate fitted bedsheets. It is just cloth and elastic hanging from all sides like a dead parachute.
If you have noticed, they never tell which side is length and which side is breadth in a bedsheet.
Why can’t companies print “Head side” and “Leg side” on bedsheets? If they can print washing instructions in six languages, why can’t they at least put a small ‘H’ & an ‘L’ for distraught husbands like me?
I spread the bedsheet on the mattress but it looked wrong. I rotated it and it still looked wrong to me. I rotated it again…ideally at least now it should have looked fine, but no. It still looked like I wasn’t doing a good job.
It didn’t seem like I was changing a bedsheet….it was as if I was solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Finally, I found one corner and pulled it over the mattress and it fit. It felt good. One corner done, now only three more to go.
It seemed like I had tasted early success, but I guess that’s how these bedsheets trap unsuspecting husbands.
They give you early success….and you start thinking “I can do this” and as soon as you move to the opposite corner…the first corner comes out.
Even after five minutes of struggling, you only have one corner under the mattress.
I was sweating profusely. Forget running, badminton or gym… changing a bedsheet for a man is cardio. If you really want to test a man’s fitness, give him a king-size fitted bedsheet and no instructions.
I don’t know when Rekha came to the bedroom’s door and started watching my struggles, but when I spotted her, she was smiling.
I think women on purpose select an inefficient husband, so that they have the upper hand in the relationship. At least that smile meant, “but of course…how could you have done this by yourself.”
“Am I doing okay?” I asked.
“No, even that one corner you have inserted under the mattress is wrong?” She said getting closer to the bed.
“How is that possible?” I was surprised.
“You see the leaves should be pointing towards the head,” she said removing the only corner I had fixed and turning the bedsheet.
I tried to argue, “But leaves grow in all directions.”
Rekha doesn’t like revolts inside the house. For instance, if my kids and I had formed Cockroach Janata Party and decided to protest in the living room, we would have found ourselves outside the house.
So she replied, “Not in this house. In here leaves grow in the direction I want.”
I am usually not a husband that gets angry at his wife, because I know I can’t afford to. But I try to use my power over the English language to take my revenge.
“Sure, oh…Queen of the Jungle,” I replied.
She immediately said, “Don’t try to be smart.”
That is another sentence married men hear often. Don’t be smart. Which is unfair because most of the time we are not even being smart. We are just trying to survive.
Then in less than 60 seconds, even as I was watching, in one smooth movement, Rekha inserted all the four corners of the bedsheet.
I don’t know how women do this. They can insert a fitted bedsheet with the finesse of a magician removing a tablecloth without moving the plates.
As I stood there thinking…wow, finally the ordeal is over, she removed the bedsheet completely and gave it in my hand saying, “Now put it properly.”
This is her teaching style. She shows once, then hands over the responsibility to me. It is like a driving instructor jumping out of the car on Mount Road and saying, “Now you drive.”
I tried again, with the direction of the leaves the way the Queen of the Jungle wanted. I pulled one corner, then the second, then the third, and finally it was time to insert the fourth corner.
At this point a question did arise in my mind: A double bed is designed for two people to sleep on it, but why is it that only one husband is expected to change the bedsheet?
But I didn’t let me feelings be shown. Domesticated husbands know that feelings can be shown only when the wife is not looking.
I stretched across the mattress, with my stomach pressed into the bed…and finally caught the corner and pulled to get the sheet snapped into place. Now all four corners were done, but the way I was sprawled on the bed, it looked like I was pulling out a kitten that had fallen into a well.
Just when I thought I could celebrate my victory, Rekha pointed towards the pillows.
If you have ever seen a pillow and a pillow cover next to each other, they will look easy. But rest assured, it is their trick.
Like any innocent husband you will take the pillow and push it inside the cover. But no…the pillow will resist and when you push harder, the it folds in the middle like it has no spine.
This is when you put your hand inside the cover and pull one corner of the pillow. The struggle is intense and now you are doing things to the pillow that should not be done in front of kids.
Finally, the pillow gives up and goes in….but then one bottom corner remains empty while the other corner has too much pillow.
Rekha sees it and asks, “Why is it like this?”
I say, “I am on it…let it settle.”
Having lost all patience by now, she takes the pillow, shakes it twice, and the damn pillow is perfect!
This annoys me…why didn’t I think of it. Now that I know the secret to a perfect pillow, I try the same with the second one, but no sir…this one won’t budge.
When my wife does it, it looks like choreography.
But when even my second pillow is not perfect, I realize that in marriage, husbands must not expect drastic improvements. They should just be happy celebrating small improvements…and that too quietly.
As Rekha gives final touches to all the pillows, I wonder…why even make the bed if we are going to sleep on it and mess it up.
I know it is a logical question…after all, we men ask practical questions. But for some reason, women call it laziness.
By the time Rekha is finished, the bed looked beautiful.
The bedsheet was tight, the pillows were straight, the blanket was folded, and the whole room looked peaceful.
I stood there looking at the bed.
Rekha said, “See? Doesn’t it look nice?”
I said, “Yes.”
She smiled.
For a second, I thought the matter was over.
Then she said, “We should change the kids’ bedsheets also.”
This is the problem with doing a job well. When a husband succeeds in a task his wife gives, it brings in more work…maybe that’s why many husbands try to fail.
But we Rajans are built different. We are love appreciation, and looks like Rekha has figured this out.
She said, “Come…lets now go to the kids’ bedroom.”
Five minutes later even that was done.
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You already know that we sleep in different bedrooms because of Rekha’s liking for Antarctica like temperatures at night. But on the days we change bedsheets, before I go to sleep in the kids bedroom…I go and lie down next to Rekha for about half hour.
That night, even as I lying down on the newly changed bedsheet, I understood why Rekha insists on all this. There is a certain pleasure in sleeping on a fresh bedsheet.
The cloth feels cool. The pillow smells clean. The room feels calmer. For a few minutes, even life feels organised.
Note: I think men hate changing bedsheets because we see it as just cloth. For women, changing a bedsheet is not just changing a bedsheet. It is resetting the room for a fresh start. A fresh bedsheet tells the family that somebody cares. And most of the time, that somebody is the woman of the house.