Sri's Musings from Bangalore

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can be therapeutic. This is my study, and the effect on me. So, not a statistically significant sample, of course. Good results none-the-less. I’m not kidding, not fooling… Sent to my "friends list" on Apr 1st 2011...posting to this blog site now...

Dear friends, Ever since we moved into this new flat in Sobha Magolia - a 3 bedroom flat in the 2nd floor of a 19 storey tall building, I have not had a maid! What a difficult thing to live without here in Bangalore city - for that matter in any city or town big or small in India. Saving on maid salary but paying for drinking water which we need to buy here!

So, since I don't have this angel anymore come in to help out with all the difficult household chores, we have become the "do-it-yourself" people - my husband and me. The daughter works only when constantly goaded. And, I have lost weight - so some people have observed - not the scale in our weighing machine that shows in "lbs" which we need to divide by 2.24 to find the data in KGs. Doing the math could increase some grey cells...

improve memory I suppose :) … >br> The dishes need to get done - can't put it off like we so often do with cleaning and mopping of the floors - that can wait! So, I've actually begun to like standing out there in the open balcony next to the kitchen and scrubbing and cleaning the dishes.

It's calm and gently that I do the dishes on good days, and hard and vigorously on those days that I want to relieve some stress - stress of work, or any other thing like the commute, the traffic, the weather - it's getting unusually sweltering here in Bangalore- the garden city which once was - and now becoming the city that's being dug up all over to make way for the “metro” that is soon to arrive - the "soon" that cannot be quantified...city dwellers have been in the waiting for over a decade now I hear. OK, so back to my dishwashing chore - not a chore anymore - it's become a therapy of sorts! There is always a good feeling of cleaning out something. Cleansing is always good - be it the dishes, the floors, the body, the soul...



In the evening time there are hordes of little children playing down there. I can see some other children along with maids/moms/babysitters at the swings, sea-saws and slides on the far end. The noise and laughter of the children is quite soothing, actually. And the tennis court is always busy - so many batches of children, signed up for classes. I wonder how he does these marathon sessions. He and his assistant are very familiar faces for me - but I'm sure they have no clue that I watch them everyday! This was the time I used to talk to my neighbor - on how her day was, what was cooked in the house, how her vacation plans were coming along and what mischief her little twin boys were upto. She had told me about her trip to Goa to her sister's place and had got me a nice pack of cashewnuts when she came back. How nice of her I thought. She does have a maid, but not for doing her dishes which she does herself. Maybe she finds it therapeutic too, I have not asked her.

Now, I can't ask, cause they have covered their balcony with opaque glass and we don't see each other in the balcony anymore. I miss seeing her smiling face but bump into her on occasions in the elevator or elsewhere in the building. We could go to each other's house to chat, but who has time for that leisurely conversation over a cup of tea or coffee in this day and age? …

Just outside the compound wall of this flat complex is a very densely populated neighbourhood of Independent/individual homes. This is a very middle-class or lower neighborhood and I notice that large families live in those small little homes. A couple of women are constantly on the terrace drying clothes, sweeping the floor (doing dishes maybe – but I can’t see that far from my balcony). Kids are playing around overlooking this tennis court and perhaps watching kids in this neighbourhood doing their tennis lessons.

There are at least 3 mosques around these flats, so we constantly hear the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin at the prescribed times of the day. The call happens five times a day, from the minaret, that I can see from the balcony. I hear this loud and clear while I'm out there washing the dishes. But, of course, we hear the call all over the house loud and clear, we can set our clocks, not needing an alarm for a 5 am wakeup. …

That dishwashing time, is time to myself, to reflect, to rejoice, to calm down, to enjoy the voices of children and see them playing haplessly, to watch the ladies on the terrace on the other side go about their daily chores, to look at the rising sun, enjoy the cool evening breeze, glance at the moon and the stars and get very important house work done. What a joy! It's a good feeling!! -Sri Lakshmi/Cheema

Labels: chores, dishwashing, joy, reflection, solitude, therapeutic activity