My realizations from brooming my house!

Let me start with a candid acknowledgement: before the national lockdown, which happened as a result of COVID-19, I’ve not really been into house cleaning activities, much less brooming my house (as a balancing act, I’ve mostly assumed responsibility for bringing stuff from the market). From an early age I’ve avoided brooming, with an excuse that I’ve some kind of dust allergy. Neither my mother followed by nor my wife really looked for a help from me in this particular department of the household chores. Lately, when our housemaid stopped visiting us, one of the activities which fell in my lap, partly by choice and partly by lack of options, is brooming. Not that I chose it as my first choice, but I went for it since I detested washing utensils more, and mopping was not available (my wife won’t handover me the final house cleaning act of the day). As I got into my newly found ‘pastime’, I’ve started to get some realizations, a few of which are very basic, and a couple of them are significant and even profound. Happy to share them with you. Perhaps a few of them match with yours, as I’m confident that quite a few of you are in a similar situation as I am!

My first realization was quite pinching! While I always knew that mopping follows brooming, which follows dusting, and it’s not the other way around (I knew you would tend to underestimate me), I did not factor the watering of plants in this entire sequence. Since mopping on many weekdays, particularly those when my wife has to start taking online lectures from 8am for her school students, could be avoided, I assumed that I could do brooming with some time-flexibility, perhaps later, after my wife has already got busy taking the lectures. No, that wasn’t just possible. Brooming must be done before watering the plants, else the broom has to taste the spilled-over water on the floor from the watering activity. I even reluctantly agreed to take on that activity so that my schedule could be more flexible, but again no, my wife won’t handover that to me. Afterall, plants are like children, and who can take best care of them other than their mother! Resultantly, it was inferred that I must broom the house latest by 7.30am, so that my wife has enough time to water the plants before starting with her lectures at 8am. Poor me.

Next realization happened for me in an area which I’m closer to, based on my qualification. You guessed it right, it’s something related to engineering. More than one question bombarded my mind, most significant being to do with the size of the tool I was using. Why is the broom so short that while using it, I have to bend all the time? Why couldn’t they make ones which can be used standing comfortably straight? I asked my wife and she just smiled. I am wondering if it has something to do with the average height of Indian females being shorter than that of Indian males. The feminists are frowning at me for making two strong remarks at the same time. And some of you are wondering, what’s so wrong about my expression, much less two together!

The third one has showed me the mirror on my face! All these days, when our housemaid has been brooming the floor, I’ve always spotted a speck of dirt here and there, on the shining cream-white tiles of my house. I’ve also occasionally pointed to my wife that the house maid has been cutting corners and perhaps needs some ‘tightening’. Now when I’m doing the act myself, the result is same, even worse. I am starting to realize how judgmental I have been all this time. This realization is fortunately no more restricted to brooming.

The bigger one has come on a Sunday, yes today, which prompted me to write this blog! In my over-enthusiasm to do the ‘best’ brooming, I ended up moving a sofa from its almost ‘permanent’ position. Yes, you guessed it right, the edges were full of dirt, etched from the time the sofa was fixed in its position, when we shifted to this house in June 2019. Although it has been only a ‘few months’, the revelation demanded my attention. I decided that I’m not one of those who would shirk the responsibility after discovering a problem. Bad decision! I ended-up moving other sofas too, and the situation became more revealing, hence more demanding. As I started to broom, I realized that unlike other days, I’ve to broom in multiple rounds. In the initial rounds, the dirt was ever increasing, as if it was becoming unending and uncontrollable. Slowly, I could manage to collect it at one place and shift it to the dust-pan. I guess it’s the same with those governments of nations who do not allow their national dust, which has been accumulating for years in the form anti-national activities, to settle down. When they start to clean it, initially it suddenly comes to the fore, causing national anxiety and reaction. Slowly, with sustained effort, it starts to come under control. The whole exercise requires a lot of patience and perseverance on part of the government. Eventually the nation starts to become more beautiful, healthy and sustainable. The entire effort is worth it!

The profound one almost moved me. I never knew how much hair humans shed on a daily basis, until I had to deal with them. They cause the maximum nuisance while brooming, move swiftly and almost uncontrollably, even by a slight whiff of air. They are the ones who cause maximum agony among people like me, who are determined to do their ‘Masters in Brooming’! As I started to ponder further, I realized that these hair truly represent the life. Like hair fall every day and are replaced by the new ones, people die every day and are replaced by the newborns. If thought on very simplistic terms, there couldn’t be any grave meaning to life. On the contrary, life in itself is just beautiful. It’s we who many times end up giving it a grave meaning.

I deeply felt like sharing my realizations with you since I recently read somewhere that ‘sharing is caring’.