My early mornings (read: between 7.30 am and 8.30 am) are plagued by an unlikely terrorist: the woman who comes to collect garbage.

She arrives – I have heard through the thick mists of sleep – dragging a large bin-on-wheels out of the elevator. The residents of the first few apartments that fall on her way to the end of the corridor – where my door stands obstinately closed and latched from inside – dutifully put their garbage bins out so that she does not have to waste any time waiting for them. I, however, refuse to comply. And there are reasons why.

a) My garbage bin does not have a lid, making it a tempting playground for crows. Result: Garbage strewn in the corridor. Very embarrassing, specially when the neighbour is kind enough to clean it up, knowing well enough that I am asleep.

b) I have tried improvised covers for the said bin. This proved to be a good deterrent for the crows alright, but the woman threw it away with the garbage.

c) I could get a new bin – with a cover – but I would not know what to do with the old one.

Hence my bin remains lidless. Consequently, I don’t put it out before going to bed.

Now back to the woman. She is the best alarm clock one could ask for. There is sharp clack! on the door with the latch, followed by a high-pitched voice demanding “Kachraa!” that never fails to stun the sleep out of me. This is often accompanied by equally high-pitched shrieks of “Baahar nikal ke rakkho… itna time nahi hai.”

What happens in the next few seconds needs to be recalled in slow motion – it is usually too fast for my groggy brain to register. I jump out of bed, run to the kitchen, grab the garbage bin by it’s rim, run back to the door, open it, look out – hoping that she has not decided I was taking up too much of her time and left – and hand it over. She will stomp over to her bin-on-wheels stationed near the elevator, empty my bin into it, stomp back and thump down the bin by my feet while I try to look a little less sleep-deprived and glance unseeingly over the newspapers. I think I have even caught her disapproving glances – how could I still be sleeping when the all the world is up and about etc etc.

I put the bin in the kitchen, fall back into bed and go to sleep as my heart stops racing.