Like clockwork, at 6:57 on another Sunday morning, the mixer-grinder started.

Mansi groaned and pulled the second pillow, the one that she had thrown on the floor sometime during the night, over and around her head. It did nothing to drown out the noise the mixer-grinding was making though.

“Why? Why every Sunday! Why?” She muttered to no one in particular.

Beside her, Sameer stirred in his sleep. Though not as annoyed by the whirring mixer-grinder as Mansi, he shifted positions and tried to go back to his partially lost sleep.

“Who makes chutney this early on a Sunday morning, yaar!” Mansi muttered, again to no one in particular.

This time, since he was the only other person there, Sameer felt compelled to answer. Still half asleep, he asked, “What makes you so sure it’s chutney?”

“It has to be! No one uses a mixie early in the morning for anything else.”

“They could be making a smoothie.”

“It doesn’t sound like a smoothie.”

“What do you mean? How can you tell?”

Mansi propped herself up on her elbows. Sameer was looking at her from over his shoulder. They were both awake now under the unrelenting noise of the mixer-grinder coming through the window. They left the window open at night to allow for the sweet breeze to ventilate the room. But come Sunday mornings, the breeze brought with it the noise of the mixer-grinder as well.

“You hear how that mixie is being used?” asked Mansi. “It’s not making a continuous sound. She, or he, I don’t know; he or she is stopping the mixie and then restarting it.”

“So?”

“So? What do you mean so? So whoever is using the mixie is checking how well the ingredients have gotten mixed and then starting again if needed. That’s what you do when you make chutney.”

“You would do that in case of a smoothie as well.” Sameer wasn’t buying Mansi’s logic.

Mansi, now irritated by the noise, and Sameer, asked, “Have you ever made chutney in your life? Or even a smoothie, for that matter?”

Sameer hadn’t. But of course, he wasn’t going to readily admit that. “Of course I have. I have stopped and started a mixie while making smoothies. Sometimes you need to check how well the fruits have mixed.”

“You don’t check so many times. You stop so many times only when you make chutney.”

The mixer-grinder, as if to validate Mansi’s argument, kept making noises in bursts, stopping and starting, stopping and starting.

“Maybe different people use a mixie in different ways,” Sameer suggested. “Can we just close the window and go back to sleep?”

He turned away and closed his eyes. But Mansi was having none of it, not again, not this time. “Why do you always have to give opinions about things you don’t know? I know how a mixie is used for different things and what they are making right now is chutney.”

“Fine! I don’t really care; I just want to sleep.”

“Fine! Whatever! Go to sleep.”

Mansi turned on her back and stared at the ceiling. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again that morning. Whoever was using the mixer-grinder was still not done. She wondered if she should complain about the noise on the society’s WhatsApp group. She doubted if that would help – they weren’t doing anything illegal or anything. They were just using a mixie. But why did they have to use it so early on Sunday mornings? And that too all Sunday mornings!

In between the noise coming from the mixer-grinder, Mansi could now hear Sameer snoring lightly. How can he go back to sleep in this noise, she wondered. That too after irritating her so much. After what felt like an hour but was a mere 10 minutes, the mixer-grinder noise stopped. Like it did every Sunday.

But like every other Sunday, Mansi’s irritation didn’t go with the noise. She closed her eyes, but sleep eluded her. The mixer-grinder had stopped whirring, but the noise that caught her attention now was Sameer’s snoring. Giving up on sleep, she got out of bed and stepped outside the bedroom.

Sameer had fallen back into a wonderful slumber. He was probably dreaming about something nice, maybe smoothies, when he was rudely awakened by a loud whirring sound. Sitting up with a jolt, he looked around himself, unable to understand where the noise was coming from. It sounded like that damn mixer-grinder again, but it was much louder than before.

When his brain woke up a little bit more, he realized that the noise was closer to him. It was coming from the house. Was there some drilling happening inside the house now, he thought. In the same half-asleep-half-awake state, Sameer stormed out of the bedroom in a fit and saw Mansi in the kitchen, one hand on the lid of her mixer-grinder and the other on the knob.

“What are you doing?” He shouted. Mansi didn’t turn to look at him. She hadn’t heard him; the noise was too much. “Hey, stop making all that noise.” She still didn’t hear him, so he walked into the kitchen and pulled out the mixer-grinder plug.

“What the hell are you doing,” he asked again.

“What does it sound like to you?” Mansi replied with a smile. “Smoothie or chutney?”