It’s a Saturday at home after what seems like ages. There’s no trip I’ve just returned from and no trip I’m leaving for in a day or two. The Saturday is all for me – my cooking, cleaning, yoga, newspaper and long calls.
And so I get into the cleaning with gusto. Delhi is in the throes of a terrible summer, and dust covers every visible inch of the household I can see. If I put my hands on the floor outside of the yoga mat during my classes, they trail a line of dust even though the floor was swept less than 24 hours ago. Anything dusted gets dusty again in an hour or two.
This Saturday, the domestic worker and I attempt to tackle the ceiling fans first. As we jointly clean the fans, I spot the lamps on the wall – fixtures from the 90s – lined with dust. After the fans, I get to the lamps. Since I’m doing that, I might as well clean the lamps in the bedrooms too, I think. As I climb up the ladder to clean the bedroom lamps, I see the line of dust on the top of the mirror, a spot too high to reach during everyday dusting. Then I see dust on the top of the frames that adorn the wall. They get cleaned too. I wash my hands, and notice the dust on top of the lamps in the bathroom. They get cleaned too.
I take a break to read the newspaper. Then it’s time to cook. I valiantly refuse help, preferring to be left to myself for a while to do it all. I play a song on loop – Chanchan from Water, marvelling at the western symphonic sounds Rahman effortlessly weaves into a song with a santoor and rumbling tablas and Hindustani classical vocals.
As the brinjals roast and the rasam simmers, I clean the microwave. Then I notice the cupboard doors; I get a wet cloth and wipe the handles, then the plasticky wooden laminate sheets, also a 90s fixture, delicately fixed to the wooden doors by generous amounts of fevicol and duct tape. “These aren’t available anymore, madam,” the carpenter had said when I wanted to get them replaced. It’s a rented house, so I can only do jugaad to keep it together, to keep it clean and functional.
As I wipe these cupboard doors, my mind wanders to Hamimommy’s videos. A woman from South Korea, Hami’s mommy ( a woman in her 30s with a little kid, Hami) makes stunning videos of her cooking, cleaning, and maintaining her house. I love these videos. They are aesthetically made, the house is beautiful – bright, airy, and oh-so-immaculate – and wow, does Hamimommy know what to do to keep it all together. Sometimes, after returning from work, I play one of her videos to calm down and remember to take mindful pleasure in the chores that await me that evening, be it preparing dinner, buying vegetables or ordering groceries.
For someone who likes to clean and organize things, Hamimommy’s videos are an absolute treat. Her cleaning supplies are stored in beautiful glass jars and the implements hung neatly in a row. She sprinkles baking soda and an already-clean (by my standards) kitchen sink now sparkles. She moans about a dirty corner of the kitchen and all it has a little speck of brown. Vinegar, lemons, baking soda, dishwasher tablets – I lap it all up. Nothing in the house looks rusty, and I feel jealous when I see my grey-green taps and shower heads and spotty mirrors, which I learnt, to much alarm, are due to the air quality especially in my neighbourhood.
I recall Hamimommy cleaning and wonder who notices what I’ve cleaned. Hamimommy gets millions of views within hours of posting a video on YouTube. Hundreds of thousannds of us hungrily tune in to know what she’s cleaned today, what she’s cooked, to see grime and dirt be beautifully scrubbed away by her gloved hands and special tools. Whom do I clean for? Does anyone notice, I think, even as I delight in the clean cupboard doors and clean lamps in the living room and feel satisfaction welling up within. (Also, if no one notices that something is clean, do they also not notice it when it’s not clean?)
I wonder what it would be like to put my camera on its tripod and record myself cleaning those cupboard doors. But I would need to wear something better to look presentable. My hair looks like dry coir, most unappealing. My cleaning cloth has a large singe in the middle from when someone used it to touch a hot gas plate. I would be a disgrace to the Hamimommy fan club at this rate.
Crouched all alone in the kitchen, cleaning, I chuckle. I clean for myself, dammit. I clean when I’m free, inspired, unencumbered by PMS or headaches or periods. I also clean when I’m down in the dumps by all of these, enraged, upset, or confused about the goings-on in life. I clean because it makes my beautiful house even more beautiful. I clean because in a world of massive unpredictability, there’s a special sense of satisfaction in the predictability that rubbing that corner with a cloth and some soap will make it clean.
Image from Pixabay.