Bathing With a Bucket of Water

These days, I bathe with a bucket of water.  I should say, I try to.  Why am I sharing this strange and very personal secret with you all?  It is partly as a water conservation measure and partly as a life style lesson I am hoping to adopt for the rest of my life.

My wife lived her early years in several African cities.  In the late seventies and eighties when she lived there with her teacher parents, they got posted in several towns. As a young adult she lived in Nigeria.  One commonality in all these places in those years was poor water supply to the towns.  As a University student, she had to lug water up three floors to her hostel room in jerry cans as the taps there ran dry most days. So she learnt the art of having a bath with small quantities of water.  She claims that she could have a decent bath in one small bucket of water if she was not washing her hair.  Now we have water in plenty, when she stands under the shower, she says that it is an indulgence. Just indulgence, and not essential to cleanliness.

I started having the “bucket shower” after a student of mine got severely burnt when the mixer of the shower at her home malfunctioned.  I got scared of using the showers with very temperamental mixers after that. Then I started doing this more often when I had to travel, in hotels and guest houses, where I was unsure of the efficiency of hot water mixers in the showers. Every Indian bathroom usually has a bucket and a mug and I started using that to sluice myself rather than risk getting myself scalded.    I am now convinced that I too can have a decent bath and shampoo my much shorter hair, with just one bucket of water. So far no one has mentioned that I am any less clean than in the days when I used to stand under the shower for 10 minutes or more – possibly using up several buckets of water. So a bath in one bucket of water is the order of the day.

I understand that they teach naval personnel to have something called a “Navy Shower”.  Wet yourself, stop the shower, soap yourself well all over and wash yourself clean under the shower.  On board ships where clean water is a premium that is the way to go.   My “bucket shower” is similar.  If one carefully wets oneself, one can wet the whole body with a couple of mugs of water. Soap well, shampoo the head and with the water in the rest of the bucket one is done. No need to wait for the water to boil up in the heaters.  You get the water at the same temperature as you began as one is using only one bucket.  All round, less resources being used.

How would it be if one starts using less resource for everything?  Would life be good?  I am going to try that in to the future.  Now when I buy something, I will not buy two of it if just one serves my purpose.   One pen in the pocket is good enough.  No need for that expensive one which “makes one Paul”. I am now going to wait for the shirt to really fray up before buying the next one.  Get the shoes resoled more than once.  Reuse everything in my personal life.   So the next time, if you see me with a slightly frayed collar, don’t let it bother you. Walk on because I’m trying to do my little bit to live life less wastefully.

Bala@Panaji

What is Plum About Ministries?

Modi government is in place.  But various parties of the coalition are angry or peeved.  One guy is (obviously prompted by his party) is not taking charge – trying to twist the arm of the PM through a public blackmail!

News reports are talking about weighty ministries.  Some prefer to call them “plum” posts (I hope PG Wodehouse will pardon them – “Rum, I say, that these chappies think of dragging my name even here”).  It leaves me wondering as to what is plum about these ministries.

Ministries like finance, defence are considered important by everyone around.  So the bureaucracy would only post the smart, intelligent and best officers to these departments.  So the quality of the notes and decisions which a minster would find on his desk would be better, needing less of his brains.  By and large the decision making processes is set, needing far less effort on his part (A war may make things different and in such cases, the decision would move to the PMO, I suppose) and most of the critical/decision would go to the cabinet anyway.

Let us look at the less plum jobs.  Say, Women and Child Development or Consumer Affairs etc.  These are places where poor quality bureaucrats are posted and you have to push them to work.  Clearly, you need some energy to make things work here. And it is here that the society and public at large are going to be impacted directly by the changes and innovation that the minister can bring in.

To my mind, then a minster posted to these positions has to bring in more verve and better skills than those who get plum posts.

Plum, therefore, is a euphemism for the TV exposure you will get (and therefore improve your chances of getting re-elected and move on to the PMs chair) or it is the weighty because of the suitcases that are brought to you?  How else would a department like civil aviation be more critical to India than Department of Social Welfare? How come HRD has suddenly become very important?  Because of the private players in education who can “pay” for permissions or it is possible to dole out permissions to your party supporters or worse still you your caste kinsmen?

By repeating the word plum, news anchors are doing us disfavour. They are bringing in the undercurrents a certain legitimacy.  It is a fight for spoils.  Let us not plaster over the money making saying “it is plum” because it is somehow more important.

 

Bala@Panaji

Let us not rejoice, Countrymen

The rapists of the Delhi gang rape have been convicted and it is the rope for them.  It has brought closure for many,.  But I am troubled by the many posts I am seeing in the social media.  Are they rejoicing?  Let us not rejoice.  Nor celebrate.  A mother now has the burden of a son who has been sent to the gallows.  A sister probably is now shedding a tear for a brother lost forever.  A father wondering what wrong he did to beget a son like this.  At best, let us let of a sigh….. a sigh that justice worked.  And let us wonder what, going ahead we should do that we have no rape…….

 

Bala@Ranchi