Veranda Tales-Bucket bathing time

Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since childhood. I grew up listening to stories during the hot summer evenings and nights with my cousins. Mothers and grandmothers would gather all of us children for story time. It was usually pitch dark except for a very faint light coming from the flickering candle. Power cuts were as frequent as the hot and humid summer days. We all spread out on a cool concrete floor or bamboo mats on the veranda intently listening to fascinating stories about kings, queens, princes, princesses, and peasants alike. Stories about love, life, families, and people entertained and taught us life skills. These stories transported us to distant worlds, strange yet familiar. Often the same story told by two people sounded different as storytellers added new twists and turns adding their personal style and flair to the stories.

Storytelling wasn’t limited to summer evenings and bedtime. I was surrounded by adults who didn’t pass up an opportunity to share their wisdom using the art of storytelling. These rich vibrant oral traditions include songs, poems, stories, and సామెతలు (Sametalu are proverbs in Telugu). Men and women sing songs as they work in the fields, grinding grains and spices and doing other daily chores at their homes. Stories are often used to teach important life lessons, interpersonal skills, and survival skills. These stories and the time spent listening to them made our lives richer leaving an impression on me. This series is all about reliving those memories as I share these stories.

గజ స్నానము (gaja snaanam)

When I was growing up, I didn’t have the luxury of turning the faucet on to get hot and cold water on demand for washing hands or taking a shower. We didn’t have running water in our house and we stored water in large buckets or water troughs. We stored drinking water in copper or mud pots to keep it cooler to drink. At times, we boiled water and cooled it down for drinking. Water is like liquid gold. We didn’t have the luxury to stand under the shower thinking deep thoughts for hours on end. We each had our share of water for the day. Taking a bath to get ready for school involved carrying half a bucket full of water close to a power outlet and placing it under it. Water is then heated using an immersion heater taking care to avoid getting electrocuted by accident. It is important to make sure you have enough cold water to mix it in with the hot water before you start heating it and deciding on how long to heat it for. Heating water to a very high temperature could mean that there was not enough cold water and you would end with overly hot water for స్నానం (snaanam).

Telugu word స్నానం (snaanam) means to bathe and this word is used to describe several methods of cleaning oneself using water. It could be immersing yourself in a river or ocean. It could be just plain pouring water on yourself from a bucket using a చెంబు (chembu is a small pot in Telugu) or drawing water from a well using a bucket and pouring it over your head. During auspicious days people go to rivers and beaches for ritual bathing.

Once the water was hot, I would carefully remove the immersion heater from the water and hang it back on the hook. I would gingerly carry the bucket into the bathroom. Then the fun of mixing hot and cold water started. I would pour a few చెంబు (chembu) full of cold water into hot water and the temperature. I would repeat the process until the temperature was just right. If I added too much cold water, water could be too cold and I had to start over with the immersion heater routine. My kids call this bucket bathing. At first they didn’t understand how it worked. They thought they needed to climb into the bucket like they got into the bathtub. When they were little, a large bucket could easily feel like a bathtub to them. I had to demonstrate the mixing of hot and cold water for them to understand what bucket bathing really entails.

When అమ్మ (Amma is mother in Telugu) visited me for the first time, she didn’t like using the shower and didn’t want to fiddle with the shower settings. She missed bucket bathing. I had to get her a bucket so she could enjoy bucket bathing.

On my last visit to India to visit అమ్మ (Amma is mother Telugu), shower faucet in my room broke. It would simply rotate without running the hot water. I kept looking up at the water heater mounted on the wall with its red light on indicating that it was working. But there was no way to get the heated water from it with the broken shower faucet. The whole time I was there, I settled for cold bucket bathing. Since I was there at the hottest time of the year, I had the luxury to wait an hour for the Sun to do the work of heating the water to the right temperature. If I waited just a couple more hours, I could have brewed tea from the water that comes out of the cold water faucet.

I can vouch for the sameta, రోహిణి ఎండకు రోళ్ళో పాయసం ఉడుకుతుంది (rohinlo endaku rollo payasam udukuthundi). రోహిణి (Rohini) is one of the 27 కార్తెలు (kaartelu) in Telugu calendar. Each కార్తె (karte) is about 13 to 14 days long indicating Sun traversal through that నక్షత్ర (nakshatra is constellation in Telugu).  రోహిణి (Rohini) is one of the 27 నక్షత్ర (nakshatra) and the కార్తె (karte) is named after it because Sun traverses through the రోహిణి (Rohini) during a 2 week peiord in April or May every year. Each కార్తె (karte) spans the two week period from పూర్ణిమ (full moon) to అమావాస్య (new moon). రోహిణి కార్తె (Rohini karte) is one of the hottest periods in Andhra Pradesh. There are several sametas that describe how hot it can get in the రోహిణి కార్తె (Rohini karte). రోహిణి ఎండకు రోళ్ళో పాయసం ఉడుకుతుంది (rohinlo endaku rollo payasam udukuthundi) sameta says,  “Payasam (kheer) can be cooked easily in a rolu in the Sun during rohini karte”.

రుబ్బురోలు (rubbu rolu) is a large grinding stone with a round hole in the middle. Another rounded stone with a wooden handle fits right into the hole in the large grinding stone. Stuff to grind goes into the hole and a rotating motion with the rounded stone using its wooden handle gets the job of grinding done. It is so hot in రోహిణి కార్తె (Rohini karte), you could leave rice, milk, and sugar in the రుబ్బురోలు (rubbu rolu), it turns into delicious payasam (kheer) in no time.

After several days of enduring cold bucket bathing, I was on my way back home staying for a night at a hotel. The first thing I did as soon as I got into my hotel room was take a long shower, thinking about the expression, గజ స్నానము (gaja snaanamu). గజం (gajam) means an elephant in Telugu. Elephants are known for their long showers playing in water, scooping up water in their trunks and pouring it on their heads and bodies for hours. While growing up when I took a long bucket bath, whoever was waiting to use the bathroom would comment on my గజ స్నానము (gaja snaanamu) teasing me for using up so much water just like an elephant. At the hotel room, thankfully I didn’t  have anybody griping about my గజ స్నానము (gaja snaanamu). 

It is the little things in life that make it fulfilling. Sipping a hot cup of coffee or tea on a cold morning is fulfilling. After a 12 hour flight, spotting your life partner eagerly waiting for you at the airport is what you need to lift you up. The shower in the hotel room after many days of cold bucket bathing was one such simple pleasure in life I can never forget.