City life has resulted in us bathing in tiny bathrooms attached to bedrooms. Some bathrooms are fitted with modern gadgets like showers, geysers, fans, air-conditioners, etc. Some carry their smartphones into the bathroom and text, sitting on the water closet.
One of my uncles found peace in his washroom. Every morning, he entered the bathroom with the morning newspaper and came out only after solving sudoku and crossword puzzles. Fortunately, his flat had a second bathroom and the rest of the family queued up there whenever the uncle monopolised his bathroom in the company of the day’s newspaper.
Some find modern bathrooms inconvenient. One of my aunts from a rural area says the bathroom in my house lacks space. She squats on the floor and washes her clothes and then takes bath. Whenever she enters the bathroom, we take it for granted that she will come out only after an hour.
Twice a week, the said aunt takes an oil bath. She soaks her hair and body in coconut oil. She stays put in the bathroom for the oil to be absorbed by the scalp and skin and uses shikakai powder to remove the excess oil on her body. She leaves oil slick and brownish shikakai sediment on the bathroom floor. To make matters worse, a bunch of fallen hair clogs the lid of the drain.
One of my friends wanted to rent out the ground floor of his house and inserted an ad in a local newspaper. He soon zeroed in on an elderly couple and took six months advance rent and handed over the keys to them. Next day, the prospective tenant told him his daughter-in-law from the US wouldn’t visit them if the bedroom didn’t have a bathroom attached to it. Since the structure of the house could not be altered, he returned the advance, took back the keys and advertised again for prospective tenants.
My grandfather’s house in a village had an excuse for a bathroom. The roof was not covered. To indicate occupancy, bathers placed their clothes on the wall to be noticed by other aspirants. Water was carried in buckets for a bath. The loo was further away in the backyard. One had to carry a lantern to visit the loo at night.
We boys were encouraged to bath in the village pond which had separate sections for men and women. Swimming was not encouraged by elders, because it resulted in water getting splashed on elders. And elders suspected that the impish boys would swim up to the middle of the pond to ogle the women bathing in the adjoining ghat.