A bath, forty winks and lessons for life in a village!

I had been to Thawar, a laid-back village 40kms from Lucknow many a time by now, but this trip was different. For one, I was going to stay at Thawar unlike all other times when I had stayed mostly at Lucknow and made day trips to Thawar and back or the one time when I stayed at the office we have at the closest block, Maal, 7 kms away from Thawar.

For obvious reasons, I was excited at the prospect of staying in the village – it would be my first stay in a village after I moved into this space early in 2011. However, there was a side of me that was a bit ticklish of how it would turn out to be in reality. Whilst the idea of a village stay sounded really romantic, however, the reality of it was about to knock my doors soon! 

A sultry ride from the Lucknow airport to Thawar in a village van which included among other uninteresting things made so by the unlikely hot weather of July, a traffic hold up at a railway crossing and a bottle full of sweat leaked by my body that made me look like someone who decided to take sauna bath with full clothes on! At this point, the first realization dawned on me that I, like many other urban dwellers is so used to an air conditioner in a car that lack of it makes me among other funny things, sweat like a pig...so much for urban living and saying that we have progressed not noticing that we have actually de-evolved instead of having evolved for good – consider this fact that we never had air conditioners at our homes when we were kids and we were perfectly alright with it then, to this species now, that leaks oodles of sweat without fail when an air conditioner is not around is certainly a sign of reverse evolution! And, I for one am a perfect specimen of this de-evolution...and unfortunately am not in minority!

After a less than average journey to Thawar, we thankfully had very fruitful meetings at the village with the entrepreneurs who continue to provide the beacon of inspiration to all new and upcoming entrepreneurs on whom the model village project is hinging its hope on. By the time, we finished the last meeting, it was late afternoon and we decided to wind our way back to the Dhruv Tara Kendra (an apt name for our office in Thawar) that has been the nerve centre for discussions, deliberations, meetings and countless training sessions for entrepreneurs and community alike.

It was late evening by the time we decided to call it a day and someone back in the electricity distribution office someplace else too decided to call it a day for us and we were suddenly plunged into darkness in the village. In fact, it was quite nice for a while as we watched the last few rays of the sun disappear beneath the horizon leaving behind a spectacular color play in the sky. With sun down, I thought the mosquitoes would get into the act as they had done in the past, but I was surprised by their understated presence this time around. Nevertheless, I was not too worried about the mosquitoes as much but the heat as that had been the overarching theme of the day so far. In fact, I had hoped that the heat would become bearable later in the evening and the night, as there would hopefully be some breeze to cool the harried nerves. Unfortunately, that did not happen and there was not a spot of breeze anywhere and the heat continued its reign unabated -- the only consolation was that the moon shone bright and one could see well without electricity. So, by the time we closed the DTK for the day, I had only one wish which was to have a long cold shower to wash off the layers of dried sweat accumulated on me through the day. Shower? Did I say shower? Suddenly, I was brought to ground from my mundane urban fixations once again...where was I to get a shower in the village? With such longing thoughts I climbed on the motorcycle of our community mobilizer and rode pillion with him to the place that was to be my host for the night.

After a short ride, I was at the unused house of the ex-pradhan of Thawar – the house was a really old one made of mud, wood and tin, each in good measure. The walls were made of mud and were about four feet thick and there were no doors to the house showing that mutual trust was commonplace attribute among communities back then than it is now...another sign of de-evolution? The building’s main entrance had large arches and then we entered a large lobby followed by a huge room where it is said durbars were held by the forefathers of ex-pradhan to judge disputes that arose within the village folk as well as to hear their grievances. 

This brought forward another aspect of village life that is generally overlooked by us urban know-all jackasses! How much simpler life institutions were then and to our ‘credit’ we have successfully managed to complicate them now, and how! Earlier during the day in the village, I had seen minimal or no security measures in most of the houses we had visited – the doors were either not there in old constructions or were left ajar for all and sundry to enter your house. You practically knew everyone in the village and therefore there was a feeling of a close knit community whereas in cities we hardly even know our next door neighbors, leave the community for someone else’s knowing and the doors are tightly shut and locked up with multiple locks...and for mending our disputes with another member of the community we go to the police, and then to a district court, and then to the high court and if we don't like that judgment too, we finally go to the supreme court where after in the event of not being satisfied still, we either sulk or take matters into our own hands! Unfortunately, with urban living becoming an assumed and erroneous benchmark, the village folk are being seduced to adopt everything urban with television and other sources presenting a titillating account of urban life and the village folk are lapping it up wholesale and the results are there for all to see – pucca houses replacing traditional houses with strong door and multiple locks replacing no-doors, reliance on the courts than the panchayat's time tested dispute redressal mechanism that was equally effective and finally general degradation of community living with which the village folk lived for centuries and the ever increasing crime rates!

Getting back to the stay at ex-pradhan's ex-house in the village – on arrival, the only thought I had in mind was to take a shower, ahem! I mean a good old fashioned bath which in my imagination would include going to a bathroom and dunking water on self using a mug from a bucket and washing self with soap and coming out clean. Since there was no light, we had a torch to look around and saw that there were two men on sitting on a charpai, a four legged village cot made of jute and wood – they were the caretakers of the place and seem to be enjoying a beedi, a cottage industry made tobacco smoke between them. I asked my colleague from the village where I could take a bath and he nonchalantly pointed the torch to a place and I looked on with hope only to find a one foot tall and four foot a side square platform next to the well and I was frozen for a moment which appeared rather long and I was wondering how I was going to take bath on an open platform like that in view of the three men sitting on the charpai...obviously that thought never crossed their minds as they did this and saw it every day and there wasn't much to look at anyways when I would do the act! So, why was I hesitant? Again, it was de-evolution of the species I belonged to that had certain preconceived notions that made me reticent. Nevertheless, it took me a while to decide how to go about it – after some scouting I noticed a wire tied on one side of the platform, which by now had a name in my mind, the Performance Platform! I realized that if I were to place my towel on the wire in a particular manner it would partially block the view of the audience...so I did that whilst the audience continued to look on wondering as to why I was taking such a long time with an activity that was so mundane and my colleague continued pointing the torch on me and the platform in order to help with find my bearings much to my irritation as if I was doing a performance with the spotlight on me! So, I told him that I did not need the spotlight aka torch on me and seeing my discomfiture he quickly switched it off and for a moment I was relieved albeit only for one moment and soon I realized that it was a full moon night for which only a while ago I was all too happy only to wish otherwise now! I decided to act now as otherwise the audience that was passive so far would become active wondering what I was unto and in that moment thousands of thoughts crossed my mind and one that was helpful was a scene I had seen in old Hindi movies that depicted village life and bathing rituals of men by the house well and I knew what to do...the key was not to fully undress but to keep your loins on and get on with the act! I did exactly that and viola I was well into the act and the water from well was cold and refreshing that not just cleaned my body of the dirt but also soothed my soul – for that moment I ignored the situation I was in and loved the bath for the first time since it began. And I think I heard a palpable sigh of relief from the audience as well! Now that I was well into the act, I realized that I did not carry soap with me and could not find any around as well and decided to just scrub myself with my hands. After it, I was as fresh as could be but somewhere inside, my bath was not complete, as I had not used soap and other things I am used to using during the bath. 

After the bath, I had a sumptuous dinner at village colleague’s house and then decided to call it a day – though I wanted to see the night sky as without electricity I had hoped to see the real night sky, which we normally miss out in cities with all the illumination pollution. However, with the moon shining brightly in full splendor, I could hardly see anything else, so, decided to retire for a day. As there was no electricity and no breeze to help, I slept outside for a while under the sky! Though it was sweltering hot, I was quite excited about it but the excitement didn't last long – the heat and mosquitoes were joined in by bed bugs and I was in much trouble and just then my luck turned around for good and electricity came back and I decided to go inside to sleep in front of a pedestal fan that growled like a jet engine but then the choice was between heat with mosquitoes and the sound of the jet engine and I decided for the latter! Well into the night, I realized it wasn't any better with the fan too as the bed bugs had followed me inside too and were now feasting on my feet. Nevertheless, I carried on through the night and got the proverbial forty winks of sleep and got up groggy, albeit early before sunrise which I normally don't do back home. Walking out of the building into the courtyard I got a whiff of fresh breeze and felt awake and refreshed. The two caretakers were already up and about – they had slept in the courtyard under the sky and they looked much fresher than me. I guess that the heat, the mosquitoes and the bed bugs did not bother them much and I remembered the fact from the previous day about my de-evolution as a human being as the potential reason for differences in our states. I also realized that I need to take bath again and this time I had to find the soap – so, I asked my colleague for it and he told me it was there by the platform. I was still hesitant to use a used soap, but then I knew soap was a disinfectant and therefore I could use it without much trouble. I decided to carry on with my morning ablutions and went on to the Performance Platform albeit this time around I was quite confident on putting up a good performance! I reached there and started with the task at hand and was looking around for that soap that my colleague had mentioned by the side of the platform but couldn't see any except a worn out detergent bar – so, half way through the bath, I called out to my colleague who was sitting by the charpai quite ignorant of my act asking him for the soap and he pointed me in the direction where I didn't want it to be – the used detergent bar! I guess detergent too is a soap just that it is used to wash clothes and it too is a cleanser and a disinfectant – only that it would be only a bit harder on the skin! A bit bewildered, I again had a thousand thoughts in my mind, just that this time, I could only remember only a jingle from an old ad from yesteryears of a soap bar of called 'OK', which went with a tag line, 'OK – nahane ka bada sabun' meaning, ‘OK – a big bathing soap’, but that was still a bathing soap and not a detergent bar! Among these thoughts, I went ahead with the scrappy detergent bar and took my 'complete' bath for the first time in the village. Strangely, I did not find any difference in freshness after this bath than after the bath I had the previous night, just that this time, I felt my skin to be stretched a bit after detergent’s action. Clearly, the difference was all in the mind and I was perhaps as clean both the times just that with the detergent, more bacteria got killed whereas at the same time I was perhaps compromising on my body's ability to build immunity to these bacteria!

After the act for the second time on the Performance Platform, another realization dawned on me that the bath I took last night was not the act but the real bath and the thing we did back home can actually be called the act, isn't it? A simple thing of taking bath has been artificially made complicated by our fertile imagination which now supports multiple industries for things ranging from bathrooms requiring tiles, marble slabs, a whole range of bath fittings and the countless bathing products from soaps, gels, shampoos and what not. For heavens sake, it is just a bath!

What I was realizing from the summation of all the small experiences since the time I arrived at the village and the stay over night was that we urban folks have managed to complicate every single and really simple aspects of our lives. The range and depth of this mess is mind-boggling that spreads from how we lead our lives in the society with members of the community we live with on one end to how we lead the life with our own private selves in our bedrooms, bathrooms and on the streets! And in each of these simple aspects we have spawned complicated systems and product producing industries. For the society, we have created a complicated legal and administrative system to help regulate a simple thing like life whereas we could do with little or no or at best self-regulation which is very much there in our villages. On the other hand, for self, we have set up a range of industries that cater to ever-increasing wants that were created from the simple needs we had. The need was bath and we created a complicated range of wants that spawned an industry as mentioned before. The need was sleep, and here again we did the same and created and still continue to create unwanted wants and the industries to cater to these wants.

The list of our needs is finite but we in our infinite wisdom have created countless wants and are still not relenting. Thankfully, in our infinite wisdom also know that this cannot go on forever – Mahatma Gandhi had said so rightly several decades ago that, "this earth can support everyone's need but not everyone's greed" and our villages still reflect this statement beautifully though we are gradually eating away at these very values they stand for. Nature does not support evolution in the reverse and if we push in that direction mindlessly, then, we will sooner than later reach a point of no return. 

So, are we willing to learn?