The Great Bath

We'd walked a few metres to the hand pump with a bucket, mug, towels & the two kids squealing & shouting in excitement - the excitmenet was no less than that at the Dassra procession in Mysore! The kids were really excited as they were going to be given a bath at the hand pump, under the blue skies....oh how they love it!

As I started pumping water a lizard jumped out from the spout & brought back memories of my childhood & years as a teenager.

Aai has always complained about how quickly I grew independent & wouldn't let anyone give me a bath once I was 4-5 years. I think she was scared of me. I'd run about the house with her trying to catch me & when I'd got a bit of a lead I'd simply dart into the bathroom & arm myself with a mugful of water (since I couldn't reach the high door bolt)....dare anyone try to enter the bathroom! After her warning me on several occassions & me flinging water....full force.....she finally gave up! Ya wild thing I was! :P

I'm no Cleopatra who is said to have bathed herself in milk everyday! Good Heavens! I'd rather use all that milk in basundi (=thickened milk sweet) than in my bath tub! Nor did the idea of a Roman Bath appeal to me. You see...it's not just a bath that I'd enjoy...it was the bathroom...the only place at home where by closing one door I opened another door; one that was a passage to a whole new world.

I was perhaps the most enegetic bathroom singer you've ever known...& undoubtedly the loudest! I was teasingly informed many times that the gentleman living 10 houses away had complained about the noise I made, or that donkeys had collected outside the house! I'd play antakshari with myself...sing all the 'cheap' songs. Aai would say - You can at least practice your classical singing lessons! She didn't get it did she? It was another world for me...despite what they said I felt I couldn't be heard on the other side of the door cause we were in two different worlds.

My world was a place where I could -

- sing & dance to the songs I'd never dared to perform in Aai's presence.... become Amitabh Bachchan with the bathroom mug full of water (since there was no beer!) singing ...Aree o jummaa, meri jaaneman, baahar nikal .... :P!.. to... becoming Madhuri performing ...'Mohini Mohini..Namashkar..kahiye kya sunenge aap?' (the song Ek Do Teen).
Things couldn't have been more surreal.


-shed the tears that I never allowed to escape in Aai's presence ..become the 11 year old who' was all confused and upset after her Dad's demise. The tap & I would gradually quieten as we filled buckets.
Could things have been more real?

In the bathroom I discovered my world....I dreamt....& I decided how to live.

I didn't mind some neighbours calling me Zeenie Baby as a teenager cause Chura Liya was a Bathroom chartbuster...with a badminton raquet I sneaked inside the bathroom & the tap as a mike :D! For mobility I'd just fix a pipe to the tap & move around holding the pipe as my mike, the upturned buckets my drums, the stick used to soak the clothes my drum stick :P If the lamps lit up because of Tansen's rendition in Deepak Raga, my roof shattering singing made Phnom Penh my Lizard & bathroom buddy fall straight off the ceiling in a frenzy! I was obviously enthused by that & subsequently sang even louder in operatic style hoping that one day it would dive straight into the the pot! 'Dhooom'...or ehh.... more realistically...'Splash' I suppose (Lizards are not the most graceful creatures you know) .... Phnom Penh, my first admirer, he'd stare hypnotized when I'd sing aloud. I'd name him so after a Country-Capital lesson in Class 5. How can I ever forget the look on his face when I sang? & can you beleive my Aai & my Sister would try to drive him away from the bathroom...Phnom Penh!!!....the ONE ardent admirer of mine!

If you're not bored let me continue...we had 2 buckets in the bathroom - one dark blue and one red. The dark blue one served the purpose of a night sky and the red was like the gaudy red seats of the Royal Albert Hall or some hall I'd seen a picture of music conductor Zubin Mehta performing. The hard water would leave salt deposits on the buckets - as the red bucket was used to store water it had concentric circles which served as rows. I would put the empty bucket on over my head and sing into it as if im singing solo to an audience at the RA Hall :D Same with the blue one - orbits in my Solar system - me being the Sun around which the planets and stars are about. The light bulb coming through the translucent plastic would create a perfect mahol :) I would stand on a wooden stool ( podium sorts) and deliver lectures into the bucket! Mind you the accoustics in the bucket and closed bathroom with high ceilings was fanastic! At the end of all this when I would FINALLY emerge out of the bathroom my Dad would give me a standing ovation and say - what a good show that was!!! :D And Aai would say - '..and the show must go on' & push my dear elder sister( who was tired of waiting for me to get out) in for a bath and tell her to hurry up! :D

Of course there would be special bathroom treats. Some days shining katoris & spoons called for a Jal Tarang recital in my favourite room. On others I'd take a perforated vessel/sieve & pour warm water through that on top of my head - a warm shower bath! On days I didn't mind pushing my luck I'd soap the bathroom floor & skate in the little place it offered!

Ya ya ...by now I'm sure all your sympathy goes out to my Mother and the soap-in-the-eye baths she tried giving me!