Iron man!

“Just a little heat and maybe some steam!

It’s not scary so don’t scream!

Some wrinkles are easy to iron you see

Clothes are three on a scale of three!”

That dress is wrinkled! That is the worst thing which could happen on a Monday morning before school! 

Ironing the uniform!

Now that was a ritual!

Read on!

It was so accurate when Hrithik Roshan said in ZNMD about the most depressing music in national television! The music which was nice but used to come just before the news and the last program of sunday! 

It was a depressing because it was a grim reminder that the sunday is over! The vacation is done and it is back to school the next day! The best time of the week was Saturday night while Sunday night was blue!

Now I used to love going to the school especially the last two years in spite of the entrance tests and the competition but in the lower classes it was dull!

We had to keep the bags ready and the homework done and dusted and finally the most important thing! The uniform!

The blasted socks would never be found and the shoes were always dirty! I still remember how my elder cousin from America once came to our house and saw my dirty shoes and then she proceeded to clean them much to my pleasant surprise! I would never polish anyone else’s shoes those days! And she did it so well that it looked a little new! A little because if you look closely the base was slowly opening! One more week of football and it would surely open! Then the Mochi bhaiyaa on the way back to school would apply his gum with the amazing smell! That would keep its mouth shut for some time!

Then the uniform! The best and worst thing of KV uniform was its white colour! Any dirt would stand out like, well dirt on a white background!

So at least on Mondays it was expected to be clean! And since those days the dress was cotton one wash would make it wrinkled like an Octogenarian’s face! The only way out is to iron it and it had to be done right!

Practically iron them well enough and you can carry them for at least three to four days! The worst was in summer because of two major issues! One of course was the sweat which used to form a bad stain and make it even more dirty and the other was that we cannot wear a sweater!

Sweater was my best dress! I used to wear them even in mild summers! One it used to add ‘bulk’ to my skinny body and other was that once you wear a sweater then it does not matter how the shirt was inside! Just had to make sure that the collar was clean!

The iron of those days were not the lightweight automatic ones! The auto switch off was either not there or gets spoilt soon! Then if you keep the Iron box in down position then rest assured you will burn! Every house had one bed sheet or cloth which used to put below for ironing with triangle burn marks! Now days of course you have the light weight automatic iron boxes and they are so simple to operate! 

Those days though handling the iron box was a big responsibility! It was used with great care since the primary use was for ironing dad’s Army Uniform which was done with great care! That was also a ritual where he had to iron them after removing all the medal and badges and then put them again! 

I used to love the army uniform! Like how I love army! The one thing which I still feel bad was not joining army when I got the chance! Of course you lose some and then gain something else!

The school uniform though was just a small thing compared to that! My brother like all elder brother was the one who taught me how to iron! The collars of the shirt and the pleats of the pants! I was not that careful though! It must look ironed and that was enough for me! In fact once for a wedding I was getting so fed up of the pleats that I ironed them out! Then my dad saw that and remarked where did the pleats disappear and got them ironed back!

Today was the day we were getting the uniforms ready for the school and I was back to Ironing duty! Now you even have the garment steamer and also many dresses do not wrinkle that much! Moreover it is easy to simply give for the laundry and ironing! The feel of freshly washed and ironed dresses is so nice! Nice also is to play one of the most famous FPS games ever called the DOOM! A sketching session of the lead with my son! He was narrating the back story in great detail!

Now make sure your dress for tomorrow is ready!

Shubh Ratri!