‘Thak thak thak’, I made that noise while walking down the corridors of the campus. It actually reminded me of those ‘gurkhas’ that stroll at night 3 a.m. That was the noise that they make. ‘Thak thak thak’ I still continued. I then walked the same way on the streets. And suddenly, I was conscious of the whole world around me. I met a Kaka from the institute “Aap hume marne nikale ho?” he said looking at the stick in my hand. “Na kaka, hu tame kem vadhu?”(No kaka, why would I hit you?) I said in my broken Gujrathi, just to make him feel comfortable. “To kathi kem?” (why the stick?) he asked, “Kutrao mate” (for the dogs), I lied, I didn’t feel like explaining a lot. “Kutrao mate?” he laughed and walked off.
I indeed did feel like Gabrielle walking with her shaft or like ‘hunterwali’, ready to hit anyone in my way. I could actually laugh out loud. The amount of stares I was drawing to myself! The vegetable vendors were staring at me. A group of guys turned back to have a second look probably wondering ‘why is she walking with a stick’? I wanted to avoid those stares, so I decided that I’d walk on the footpath. But no, seeing a stick in my hand, the dogs started barking! Phew! So much for a hot water bath!
Yeah. For a bucket of hot water bath! I never thought that a hot water bath was so tempting. But of late I have started believing in a lot of things that I otherwise would not. Ahmedabad gets cold at night, its like it is in the deserts. The wind is strong, real strong and cold, real cold. And so, the water also gets cold too, real cold. I would die but never ask the Kaps (more on them later!) to fix a geyser in my bathroom. So what’s a stick got to do with hot water? Naah, not Birbal’s khichadi!
I was cribbing about the cold water bath to a friend of mine. And she said in the granish tone of hers’ “Duffer, can’t you buy a water heater?” Oops, that never clicked me, did it? The next hour I find myself buying an electric water heater rod. I smiled to myself. Now I wouldn’t have to rush to my room after office hours so as to get water just tepid enough for my evening bath and still find myself shivering. Now I can have a bath morning and evening like before. That is more important to me because of my daily pooja routine. But I still had a problem. I needed a stick so I could hang the heater on it.
My quest for the stick began in the campus garden. Thankfully for me, I found Amit, my ex-colleague, who helped me find a bamboo stick. I was taking that back to my room. But when I reached my room, it was a thought came across: Have you ever wondered how a caterpillar feels when he is just out of that cocoon of his? Raw and stark naked? Stripped off of every cover he had and exposed to the whole wide world? But that is just the beginning. Life has a lot to teach the caterpillar for sure before he becomes a butterfly. That was exactly how I felt at that moment when I was placing that stick on the bucket trying to balance the heater on the stick. Life had turned topsy-turvy in the last couple of months. I can still feel the thorns. My landlady and her obnoxious dealings, my job and its challenges, my colleagues and their eccentricities and God alone knows what else. Staying alone is difficult, I agree. You stumble and fall. You are hurt. You try to get up and yet, you fall again. You know you won’t ask for help, simply because you think you are grown up and think you should face your problems yourself. But even in the cinder, comes a sweet pleasure in facing the challenges that life throws at you. Of having grown up a little above the foibles. Of correcting yourself. Of facing the people you otherwise would not like to look at. You learn to take snide remarks without them getting into your system. Life teaches you all that. Not because it wants to, but because you have to and because you have no way out! There is a slight difference there. And when you are ready, slowly but surely, you come out as a beautiful butterfly, just like the caterpillar. And then, before you’ve known it, there you are… a beautiful butterfly!
And while I was waiting, heating the water, while I was enjoying my hot water after over a month, life’s little pleasures came back to me.
That day, after a long time, I also enjoyed washing my clothes … in hot water. Wonder what the Kaps will say if they know I’m using hot water to wash clothes! Oh their electricity bill... And I am laughing, to myself!
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