Safai

 Safai, uh-huh, not the hath-ki-safai or theft that you hear generally, but cleanliness, baba, that is next to Godliness and can be seen as a vital part of any Indian household routine. Generally speaking, how do you picture an Indian household in the morning hours? Enjoying a cup of tea and newspaper, you say? Good lord! Aspirational thinking it is. Why? Because many families get done with these activities even before you can imagine. Many of us are early risers, huh! We don’t keep dozing like you for the rest of the day doing nothing! So what is the second-best thing your eyes can expect to behold in the morning? Bingo. It is some beautiful, motherly figure holding a broom/duster in one hand and a mopping stick in the other. I do not contend that every human does things on their own. We do it differently. Right. We have a good mix here like, you see, different categories of cleanliness freaks in India. 

The first category would feature people that can afford to have maids and tend to show a different side of themselves where they supervise their team of “safai-kartas” or “karamcharis” and keep close surveillance on them for fear of laxity. That would mean following them in pursuit of an iota of dust in any godforsaken nook and corner of their apartment. I call them Day-watchers. The second category is for people that can afford to have help but prefer not to have one in anticipation of fear of laxity. I call them “Lal-Bujhnuks” or “smart masses”. They would complain that the help is not worth their time and are only for money with nothing to offer. I wonder what else could their motivation be. Unless they like rubbing floors and utensils out of a hobby. The third category of people are those who would keep a team of help but simultaneously have a duster in their hands as well. They are Gati avrodhaks or the untrusting types. They stall the cleaning process with their insignificant paraphernalia they consider relevant and I doubt if they would ever decide against it. The fourth and the last category belongs to the self-believers or swayam-sevaks that toil hard because they have no or limited means to buttress their agenda of keeping their houses clean. In simple words, they can’t afford it and there is nothing wrong with that!

I do not intend to offend anyone here. Tch tch. Never. A lot I have mentioned comes from my own experiences as a child and beyond. I have witnessed this since childhood not only in my own house but also in my uncles and aunties. Things like mopping and guest departure rituals. Remember, how important it used to be not to tread upon the “wetlands” till the land was no wetter and keep the floor clean as long as possible when your mum or help or mum+help would do the cleaning of your room. As a child, I fancied such things and felt inquisitive about them. For instance, every time my sister or I would get up from the bed or chair or sofa, my mother would, I think, intuitively straighten up things such as creases of the bed sheet or the covers of the sofa or the arrangement of chairs and so on. There was some merit to it, no doubt. Because it left a beautiful, orderly house in the end and would be a delight to everyone’s eyes as things appeared prim and proper. I always wondered why my mother strained herself so much when the other option was so alluring. To do nothing! I remember visiting one of my aunt’s places. Her house was a living mess. Not trying to belittle anyone. As a matter of fact, I praised her all the time. She was like a guiding light to me or I would say to people falling in my category. I remember her speak to my mum about cleanliness in general. I once overheard her say, “who would trouble their “kanchan-kaya” aka oneself for the heck of cleanliness” (Simply put, "who would trouble themselves just to keep the house clean" ? Also, I was too impressed with her Hindi). You see, that was my motive to achieve as an adult too. And that clearly meant that there had been and would continue to have umpteen people in this glorious category. Long story short, I preached on the same lines. To myself.

My conclusion driven by my own sacred opinion was that my mother did all this cleaning because it was her hobby or passion as you may call it, and I, on the contrary, would always console myself thinking about the other possibilities. Like what if I developed some other hobby/passion that would require a little less of me. What if scenarios around cleanliness change? What if people stop caring about - "Log kya kahenge"?(What would people say?) Oh, sorry. My bad. Anyway, my thoughts always led me to several instances where I would sneak out of the room at the very possibility of some work being delegated to me. Or pretend to be studying for tests etc.  But whenever these gimmicks did not work to my advantage, I would resort to a sham such as not understanding any of it and seek help from the elderly. My sister! She would frown upon me and insist mum on getting it done all by myself. But I was no loser. I was persistent. I showed bravery sometimes at the cost of getting thrashed by my sister but I never relented. What did you say? I was lazy. Please. I was very.. lazy.

Now after so many years, when I look back, I wonder at myself. I have become so fussy when it comes to cleaning and whatnot. Where did it come from? It might have something to do with the genes as well as some external wisdom in the form of “advice” from other elderlies. I don’t need to have much clarity but whatever it seems fine to me. Though I have that little child in me that keeps saying, “choin dahi” (meaning don’t do it). That’s exactly what my mother says I would tell her looking in her eyes while she did the daily chores. I was hardly five. Yeah. Needless to say, I was a lazy-youth in the making! Or maybe not. It was my love and care for my mother.

Sometimes, I feel nostalgic. I wish I had helped my mother in her daily chores when I was a kid. But then I think she never resented or admonished and only loved us. Oh good, her mistake then? But the child in me screams out loud and wants to apologize to her mother. I say, Sit tight. Your little apology might make your mother happy temporarily but you will have another list of apologies to make that you hardly have accounted for. So no use.

Fine, I would apologize to my mother!

All said and done, I am a responsible citizen, meticulously doing safai, maintaining order around my house, and proving my allegiance to my safai-self thousands of kilometers away at home away from home.

P.S. - Every human being is special. No job is big or small. Let us pledge to be our own help. (Hope it doesn't sound like Geeta ka Saar from my not-so yesteryear calendar sitting in the living room). Flipside. We may lose some unwanted pounds, right. :)

Thank You:)