A Tuesday question: Happy Monday?

One of the most tantalising philosophical questions — Is happy Monday an oxymoron? — has got a response, if not an outright answer, from Anushka Sharma. By sharing an Instagram photo of herself laughing her head off on a Monday, she has challenged the notion of Monday blues.

So, does that mean the 1986 Bangles’ song ‘Manic Monday’ — with those devastating lines, ‘It’s just another manic Monday (Woah, woah)/ I wish it was Sunday (Woah, woah)’ — is now redundant? Or will New Order’s 1982 classic ‘Blue Monday’ — with its ominous words, ‘Tell me, how does it feel/When your heart grows cold?’ — now fall out of order? Sharma’s Monday challenge comes at a time when challenging the first working day of the week has become easier.

There was a time when weekends, starting on Friday nights (and in laid-back places like Kolkata, on Thursday afternoons) and ending on Sunday nights, would mean going out, meeting friends, partying, leaving the hangover for Monday to take care of — or leaving Monday for the hangover to take care of. With WFH and lockdown restrictions, every day is Friday-Sunday.


Monday is no longer the chap picking up the pieces and resettling the furniture. Which means the birth of a new trend: Monday happymaking. Next target: the mid-life crisis that comes with every middle of the month