As a kid, there was one thing that I abhorred the most – the Sunday baths. And the villain in all its episodes happened to be a woman.
The Sunday winter mornings would always have the unremitting lazy feeling that would threaten to encroach into the afternoons. And in them I always had the pleasure of sleeping well past my usual school time, with black tea and thin-arrowroot biscuits served royally at my bedside, and some oranges or olives warming in a thatched roof on a dola. But then there would always be something or the other that would ruin the well crafted dreams created by my conscious mind in my pleasure sleep’s prefecture.
My craft at carving out stories in this realm was immaculate and engaging. Like the game of marble where I’d win back my lucky pea green marble from Aseem and then with it deplete the pouch that he carefully strings to his waist, a treasure which had some of the most beautiful marbles in it. Or laying my hands on the guavas at the topmost branches of Hifzoor Mama’s orchard of five trees, the ripening stories of which could only be savored by the parrots and the crows. My catapult would find the scarecrow’s cap from every angle of release. Why the scarecrow’s cap, from the distance I could hit the middle of O of the “VOTE for AGP” sign painted on the rusty electricity pole many moons ago by the political campaigners. So much that my art would defy the science of trajectory and gravity and I would be able to shoot down Munaf’s kite and hunt wild ducks in the mire by the paddy fields.
These perfectly written early-morning-soft-sunlight dreams would never be driven to culmination where I could end up gifting a guava to the girl in pink frock, counting countless times my hoard of marbles, and be envied and feared by the kids of the neighborhood for my catapult skills. The disruptions could be anything – from the blaring stereo of some Jhankar Beats songs played by our neighbor to the weekly cleaning activities of my mother that would involve, besides others, lots of movements of objects that make noise, like the brass vessels and the Singer stitching machine. Even the crow at times will find the glass panes of the window beside my bed to clean its beak. And on the scantily spaced days when none of these disruptions led their charges, I’d suddenly get the urge to relieve myself. Feeling my way to the bathroom by making the least use of my vision lest the daylight ruin the half knit dream that I was weaving, I’d hardly bother to aim at the hole. When I was done, I’d feel my way back to the bed only to find my mother folding the blanket and replacing the warm bedsheet with a cold and new one.
And so, although I had no upper-time-limit on my Sunday morning sleeps, I always ended up on a small little cold stool at the back-verandah, with my knees folded to rest my hanging chin. I’d carelessly tug at the combs of oranges peeled by my sister sitting beside me while letting the sun warm my back. Near the tube-well, mother would be busy washing the clothes and having a conversation with Sumira Mahi. Everytime she’d pitch up her voice I’d look at her in a lazy daze and would find her reproachfully smashing the wet clothes on the stone slab without any rhythm. At times when she’d be in the midst of a happy conversation, the wet clothes under her clutches would feel the soft scrub of her hands. So much for the poor clothes, everytime they were soaked in the detergent powder they must have prayed that old Sumira Mahi had something amusing and agreeable to share in her tube-well conversations with mother.
The tube-well would also be the silent witness of my mother’s next drama, the unwilling and helpless protagonist of which would be a long legged sleepy boy bathing himself in the flimsy chrome sunshine by the verandah. Mother would pull out water from the tube-well and put it in two steel buckets by the stone slab. And before I’d realize, she’d pull me by the hand towards the butchering arena of the clothes. I have made copious attempts to flee the arena; from running around the house to the age-old I feel feverish drama, but all roads would eventually end up near the tube-well. Mother would pull out my shirt and half-pants and fling it to a corner. She’d then pull off my vest and underwear and keep it on the stone slab.
When it comes to bathing on a cold day with cold water, one always proceeds on an unwritten step-by-step protocol. First the limbs go for the soak, then the head follows and finally after many doses of you-can-do-it, the body is soaked in the barrage of a few quick mugs of water. To my mother, this protocol did not exist. With a wave of her hand she’d pull out mugs of water and soak me, head to toe, all in a matter of a few milliseconds. And while I’d be shivering in the cold and would be waiting for the entire ordeal to get over as soon as possible, more often than not, old Sumira Mahi will have her spiciest story lined up for the occasion. Her narration would slow mother down, and the cold wave in my chest would force me to clamp my wet forearms and let out a shivering huuhuuuhooo huuu uuuuhhhh… That won’t bother my dear mother though. From the soap case, she’d pick a pink lux soap and daub it on me. She’d use the same soap to froth my hair too. The real drama would start when she’d pick my vest from the slab and use it like a scrubber to cleanse me. She’d scour me vigorously without any compassion like she usually does when she’s cleaning the soot off the aluminum rice pot. The pot gets back to some shade of aluminum, but my mortified body turns pink in patches and if not for the mugs of water that mother keeps putting on my body while scrubbing, those pink patches would have surely caught fire. I’d scream, cry, dig my nails into her skin, but the scrubwork would continue. Then with one move, she’d lift the bucket and spill the water on me. Sumira Mahi’s prattle would echo in my ears as the water cleansed me.
As I run for a bath in my apartment today, I think about the small puddle of frothy water accumulating near my feet and the face of my mother wrapping me in a thin towel. Putting my ear to the music of the FM station playing in my living room, I wait in anticipation for the radio jockey’s crisp voice to break my morning trance. A body scrub, a liquid soap for the body, some shampoo and conditioner for the hair and some make-me-fair face wash – I look at it all in the bathroom and still do not find one single thing that could bring me the smell of my palm after my mother had bathed me. The radio jockey’s prattle echoed in the distance. Switching on the geyser, I wait for a few seconds, and then step into the shower.
