Long before the structured sandpits, play zones, and artificial turf recreation areas of the new millennium took over the collective play dynamics (and imaginations) of children living and growing up in gated communities, there existed dust. Dust marked the beginning of hours of running, sometimes wildly, sometimes in groups, inside boundaries that had no visible walls but was nonetheless understood as a safe space. Dust was a trigger for the pursuit of adventure. Engaging with dust meant that you were comfortable (with), even eagerly anticipating, a torn dress, grimy face, skinned knees, scraped palms, and roughhousing. Dust signified the end of homework, chores, and a temporary release from parental control. Dust, was the arena of play in the 1980s and 1990s and millennials grew up valuing the role that dust played in their pre-digital nomad life.
With no compound walls, automated gates, or biometric scans, residential colonies of pre-economic liberalization Bombay featured open maidans that tripled up as: a) cricket pitches / lagori patches / kho kho dugouts / pakda-pakdi arenas (catch-catch & help-help, remember those?), b) makeshift parking lots for our Vespas and Bajaj scooters and the odd Premiers and Ambassadors, and c) Dandiya, Holi and Diwali celebrations. We didn’t have pukka halls, paver blocked sidewalks, concrete compounds, or even artificial grass or gardens well into the turn of the millennium. Dust didn’t lessen the sacred nature of the space and its shape-shifting evolution through the seasons.
The maidan, with its mitti and dhool, was the only congregation space for building residents to meet, greet and gossip; for the watchmen to plonk their rusty chairs together and light up a beedi (no security guards from a registered company, sorry), for the macchiwali, sabziwala, and khari biscuitwala to shout out their wares; for the kainchiwala to sharpen his knives on his spark-breathing cycle, for the bartanwalis to barter utensils for clothes. The dusty maidan in the midst of the buildings was a stage where everyone had a role to play.
The concrete tanki was always covered in dust, yet we plopped on it in a row, us girls and boys, with none of us ever saying, “Oh, my dress will get dirty, there’s so much dust here!” Of course it’s going to get dirty and that was the whole point! The tanki was a ‘hiding in plain view’ kind of space to talk about school, elder siblings, ghost stories, Karamchand, Mahabharat, Kille Ka Rahasya, superstitions that were assumed to be plain truths back in the day. The dusty space, neglected by shareef aunties and college-going teens, became an adda for boys and girls to meet and giggle and get familiar with the opposite sex in the guise of talking shop. Dust meant the intimacy of choruses that could never mingle within the painted walls of our homes.
Our collective dusting off of our clothes, bums, legs, hands, and hair marked the ritual that signified the descent into the domestic sphere and the close of play. We, zippered up our boisterous, wild child Mowgli personas in exchange for Luv and Kush from the Ramayana,- obedient, skilled, and clean children of Sita and Ram, the epitome of purity. The loss of dust is reflected in our antithetical behavior and a set of accompanying purifying rituals: rigorously washing our hands and feet under the bathroom taps, putting away our clothes in the washing bucket, wearing clean, fragrant clothes for dinner, wiping away the dust from the steel dinner plates, and finally, shaking off dust from the chhatai before sitting down cross-legged to have our meals. Dust occupied (and continues to do so) a thinly veiled yet permanent position at home: a position that we kept challenging through constant vigilance.
On the surface, our days were marked by the calendar, the clock, and the timely ringing of doorbells by the akbarwala (6am), the doodhwala (7am), and the kachrawala (8am). But scratch a little deeper, and you will see that cleaning and establishing order in the house – the removal of dust from every corner and surface – was what really marked the ebb and flow of the day. To banish dust on a daily basis from home meant a well-calibrated set of behavior: don’t jump on the bed, don’t plop down on the sofa with our feet, don’t walk around the house, don’t step out of the main door to the dusty corridor or passageway, put away the chappals, and so on.
The kaamwalibai aka khaala occupied the pride of place in the household. Why? Because she was the high priestess of cleanliness; using her jhadu, khatka and pocha as sacred tools to officiate over the cleansing rituals that would appease the gods of purity. As a kid, I remember the absolutely comical expression, which I now realize was annoyance mingled with horror on my mother’s face when the house-help asked for chutti. Gasp! Chutti meant no purifying rituals for that day (or worse, a week or month if she had to go away to her hometown. Then, other temporary priestesses would have to be sought out). Not eliminating dust on an hourly basis meant a complete failure of the grihasti and mother’s house managing abilities. Keeping the house neat and clean was a mandate passed on from mother-in-law and mothers to their daughters-in-law and daughters. The absence of dust was a signifier of the domestic order of things being followed.
Dust occupied many tea-time conversations with neighboring aunties, chachis, and buas, each employing degrees of hyperbole to describe their prowess with taming dust through the house helps. I remember this conversation between mother and two neighboring aunties one evening: Auntie 1: “I make my bai clean the kitchen counters with Colin.” Auntie 2: “I make my bai use Lifebuoy for the washbasin.” Mother: “Oh, we just bought a vacuum cleaner and I don’t allow the bai to touch it. I handle it myself”. And there were audible gasps from the aunties. A vacuum cleaner, the highest of the sacred objects prayed for by every devout mother;a way to systematically cleanse the house of dust, dust mites, mountains of motes, and cobwebs from every corner (even under the sofa and the window sill). While the rest of the world assumes that the British are best at carrying on the traditions of high tea while making perfectly splendid small talk around weather and politics, our Indian aunties regularly gave the Brits a run for their money with our distinguished discourse on wind types and dust sediments. “Oh, Mrs Iyer, I tell you, iss hawa ne toh bhauchaal machake rakha hai! Pura ghar dhool se bhar jata hai. Kitna saaf karti hoon main” (Oh, Mrs Iyer, I tell you, this wind has created such a mess at home. The entire house is filled with dust. How long do I keep cleaning!” The cheeky child that I was, I very intelligently remarked, ‘as long as the wind blows, mumma’. Yes, I did receive a rap on the cheek for that one.
The story of dust from here on goes hand in hand with technological innovations designed and manufactured to keep it in check. Our glass-paned window windows were replaced with glass sliders, brooms came equipped with plastic bristles, mops were upgraded with a twist and release technology, and a slew of cleaning agents now occupy our homes (apart from good ol’ Dettol) to help with removing dust from every possible surface. And sadly, dusty tankis have given way to overhead Syntex tanks and maidans have been paved over with cement, paver blocks and artificial turfs. Dust is no longer a reliable old friend whom we would take refuge in, but a mite-infesting weapon of mass occupation that helps sell industrial strength cleaning products. May our humble jhadus rest in peace!
Now that I am running my own house — and not doing my mom any proud with my lackadaisical attitude towards cleaning — I have come to appreciate the tremendous pressure that our mothers were under to keep things neat and clean. I don’t have children running around the house, so there’s no one to blame but myself when I discover that dust has made a comfortable home for itself at home. I hate it when a layer of dust coats my books, even though they are ensconced in glass-and-wood cupboards. I am in an eternal holy war against dust motes that settle into the corners of the sofa, crockery and the bed headboard. Every now and then I crib about the gusts of wind blowing in from the West, bringing in dust from the balcony. I turn to my husband, my partner in crime (and grime) and whine, ‘Oh, these winds create such a mess at home. Look at all this dust, how long do I keep cleaning!’ His answer, unsurprisingly, is one I am already familiar with.
