A playlist for Sunday cleaning. It used to be a chore, an imposition either avoided or endured. Then, one Sunday afternoon, the urge to tidy up a space springs up on its own (damn those viral decluttering and Clean With Me videos). It doesn’t work without special music. Because cleaning isn’t a chore, it’s a vibe. There are spray bottles and lavender scents involved. Plus, romanticising everything is a coping mechanism. It works.
Event Context
Knowing your Uber fare. Let the kids view surge pricing and weep. A new sign of growing up is knowing the fare to a familiar destination at a familiar time before even opening the app. Peak vs off-peak hour, Apple vs Android, male vs female user, the cheaper pick-up spot that’s a three-minute walk away. Nobody taught you this, you picked it up ride by ride, held on to your 4.9 rating, and don’t mind the occasional upgrade these days.
The linens hierarchy. Good sheets. Guest towels. Everyday cushion covers. House party drapes. This is the stuff you’d laugh at when you were younger – you made do with two sets of bedsheets on rotation for years. Now, you cringe over 120-TC weaves and polyblend pillowcases. Supima cotton, Jaipur block-print and mercerised weaves really do feel luxurious. Someone mentioned an NGO that embroiders monograms on towels and napkins – and your heart just skipped a beat.
Kitchen quirks. All through childhood, the kitchen was the off-limits part of the house. Now, you have a preferred hob burner (plus one they never use). There’s one unloved spoon in the drawer, brought out only in extreme circumstances (and yet, never thrown away). The bundle of disposable chopsticks, which came with sushi, has disappeared. There are nice reusable ones now. The mugs are still mismatched, but you have an opinion on each of them (one is chipped, be careful with it).
Team Analysis
Birding binoculars. Or, whichever tool suits the niche, unglamorous activity that never cropped up in the first 30 years of one’s life. People who never cared for nature get competitive about identifying moss. Some decide to visit every heritage stepwell in Maharashtra. Birding is particularly popular with those who grew up with the climate crisis and seek something slow, offline, with zero utility value, zero content potential, and zero side hustle opportunity.
Expensive skincare. A generation that witnessed the rise of Nykaa, watched beauty startups mushroom, and knows AHA from BHA will hit a plateau eventually. Ten-step Korean routines will feel tiresome; 10-piece trial kits will feel like homework. What tends to work, at this point, are fewer, high-quality products, a consultation with a dermatologist, and a sustainable routine. Hello! You treat yourself like someone worth taking care of.
Match Outlook
A love for big garlic cloves. Let grannies insist that the small ones are where the flavour is. For kids these days, the moment of adulthood arrives the moment they start obsessing about garlic, and pods with oversized cloves. They’ll follow recipes. But they’ll measure garlic with their hearts. Fat cloves are easy to peel, look good on the gram. They hold it up like Rafiki presenting Simba at Pride Rock.
An interest in air-fryers. It’s this generation’s Bullet Blender, the gadget that signifies active cooking and new investment in the kitchen. It sits on your counter like a small declaration of independence, proof that ordering in every night is no longer the only option. Sure, it fries using less oil. But to want one is to admit that you actually want to eat healthy, that you’re at the age when you swap recipes with friends and buy “Italian Herb Mix” yourself.
A Friday night in. Let the teens fill their calendars with coffee raves, matcha tastings and benne-dosa queues. There will come a point when they dread another weekend of dressing up, commuting, socialising and returning. They’ll make excuses, cancel plans the afternoon of. And then, nothing. No guilt, no FOMO, no anxious scrolling through everyone else’s Stories. That’s the pivot to adulthood. It creeps up so subtly, you won’t even realise it until S2 E6 of your Saturday binge.
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A meal prep ritual. Growing up is tricky. One day it’s the race to claim someone’s cancelled Zomato order at 40% off. The next, you’re ordering fresh groceries for the week, triaging them into 10 meals, accounting for leftovers, looking lovingly at a plump brinjal and can’t wait to make mutabal this evening. Every adult discovers meal-planning on their own terms – via budgeting, an influencer or a set of colour-coded tiffin boxes. It’s why actual grown-ups rarely stare into the open fridge and wonder if there’s anything to eat.
From HT Brunch, August 1, 2026
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