Memory Bombing

A few days ago, during lockdown, as we sat down to eat lunch, the kids and I heard an extremely loud thud, a loud bang, and the falling and shattering of a lot of glass. I immediately looked for the dog wondering if she had gotten into mischief upstairs, but she stared at me from under the table just as startled as we were.

“What on earth was that?” I muttered. I pictured all objects poised for a fall in the house and couldn’t think of any. “Must be the neighbours. Hope they are OK,” I said, and carried on with my meal. The kids too ate up and we forgot about it. A couple of hours later I went up to my bedroom to use the toilet, and there, on the floor lay my washbasin counter, the undercounter cabinet, and all my things, several smashed to smithereens.

Since then I have no washbasin to wash my hands, brush my teeth and wash my face. Instead, I use the tap in the shower area. I remember almost not putting in a tap when we built the bathroom, thinking “Who needs taps when we have showers? We don’t even do bucket baths anymore.” Well, when you don’t have a washbasin you use the tap.

That night as I pondered how to brush my teeth and wash my face all under this tap, I found myself going back in time.

Once upon a time, as a little girl, when I would spend nights at my grandmother’s house, I used to brush my teeth and wash my face under a big old tap in what was called the mitthum. I am not a 100% sure of the term, but that was what I learnt to call it anyway. It was a semi-courtyard like space at the back of the old house (built early 1900s) where the maids would wash the vessels. The central space was sunken, made of stone, and open to sky (was marvelously noisy when it rained). A corridor ran around it on all sides, with doors that led off into various utilitarian rooms – storerooms, a big bathing room, a toilet, a servant’s toilet, and a servant’s bedroom. On one side a staircase led up to the attic on the first floor, and then beyond onto a terrace. At another end was what we called the Anda, where water was heated in a large copper or brass pot sunken into a cemented base. It was heated by fire lit on the outside of the house, under the pot. There was no washbasin in all this space. The only thing that came close was this big tap that spewed water into the central stone area. I would bring my toothpaste and toothbrush and stand by this big tap and brush and spit and rinse, and then toddle back to my grandmother’s room.

As I now use my soap-free facewash and dab my face dry with a face towel, and delicately rinse my feet and step onto a clean bathmat, I can’t help but think how differently we lead our lives now from how simply I used to do back then. But that’s for another post.