It was the month of October last year and Diwali was around the corner. I associate Diwali with lots of light, colorful rangolis, some firecrackers and tons of sweets. But being in India after so many years, I was soon to realize another important aspect. How conveniently I had sidelined it during all these years of my stay in US? It's ceremoniously called 'Diwali ki Safai'.
My Bai first mentioned it. One day she said she'll be late to work as another 'Didi'(the female member in charge of a household she works for) has asked her for 'Diwali ki Safai'. I sneered of how people find ways to keep themselves busy. I looked around my rented apartment. Things looked alright and I thought it didn't need more than 1-2 hrs of cleaning if at all. My thoughts then drifted to memories of childhood.
I recalled how my mother felt really strongly about this Safai. While we as kids could just think of how many firecrackers we could negotiate for ourselves for Diwali, my mother's agenda included 'Safai' i.e. to clean every nook and corner of the house. "This real cleaning of houses happens only once a year during Diwali", she argued. Weekends near Diwali involved climbing to attic to organize and clean, or wash all silver, copper and brass vessels or dusting at those witty corners of house which were ignored all year along. These were some of the tasks that we as kids could never appreciate.
Now as I absorbed these memories and looked around my apartment again, I noticed things which I had not done before. The spots in the balcony glass pane, the mesh of wire under the TV table, the old newspapers lined in the kitchen shelves....sigh! Few days passed and by the time I could make up my mind, it looked like I was running out of time. A week from Diwali my cook casually inquired, "Bhabhi Diwali ki Safai nahi karva rahi hain?". I could see him glancing at the greased spots around the exhaust fan in kitchen. That grease blended nicely with the grey metallic color of the exhaust fan all this time, but seemed to stand out for some reason at that moment. I told my cook that it's planned for the weekend. It was actually not.
I did not have my Bai's approval. Due to her busy schedule it couldn't happen that weekend. I could really feel the pressure now. People were talking about it in office buses, on lunch tables and in social gatherings. Diwali was just one weekend away. I finally got a slot from Bai. I remember that weekend where like a crazy person I had started a tsunami in my kitchen from 6 am in the morning. It is very easy to get tired in all the anticipation when you start cleaning from one end and the other end is not visibile anywhere. Every person in the house was cleaning something or the other that day. Finally after 6-7 hrs of 5 adults cleaning the house, we stopped. We could have continued on as I have learned over time that household tasks are open ended. But we stopped. The entire floor was water sprayed as the last step. As we settled down in sofas and looked around, I had the 'after the storm' kind of feeling. I don't know if it was the coolness of water or the relief that it's over, but everything appeared really calm and clean. I had done my share of Diwali ki Safai!
No comments:
Post a Comment