The space under the huge bed propped up even higher by bricks was Chintamoni’s storage room. Not because the kitchen didn’t have enough space. The kitchen was in fact quite large, but mice and mole-rats as big as cats were always scurrying in and out of the drain hole. Besides, the water vat in the kitchen was where she stored wood, coal, and dry cow dung. A jagged stone used for breaking coal lay on the floor. There was also a hammer that had a piece of wood jammed above its wobbly handle to hold it steady. Apart from this, the kitchen housed coal in bamboo baskets and a pile of old, broken items. Kerosene tins and other belongings were usually also strewn over the coal heap.
Chintamoni found it impossible to discard even the oldest and dirtiest of things.
One couldn’t really call Chintamoni filthy, untidy, or lazy. But people were quite indifferent to sanitation and hygiene in the times I’m writing about.
In those days, the people of Kolkata would wash their clothes in the same place where they urinated. In the older parts of the city, you could end up stepping on shit if you were even slightly absent minded. Most neighbourhoods had uncovered drains. People of all ages habitually squatted by them and took care of their morning business. In front of each house was a small pile of garbage. People disposed of their rubbish casually on the street, so listening to cats, dogs, and crows fighting over leftovers all day long had become a routine occurrence. A wild commotion would arise if a crow stole fish bones from one house and perched on fresh clothes on a clothesline in some other house. Crows were treated with great disgust in the homes of Brahmin widows. If a crow sat on fresh clothes, they had to be washed all over again. Back then it was quite common for women to exclaim, “Oh, my wretched luck!" at the slightest inconvenience.
In those days, fights broke out regularly between dogs and humans over discarded leftovers. You often came upon this scene in the narrow lanes of Kolkata’s middle-class neighbourhoods. A gaunt figure would be crouching down and hunting through the trash for food while dogs closed in on him from all sides. The dogs would howl while the man grimaced energetically at them and swung a stick around his head, swearing colourfully. The dogs would retreat and approach again, teeth bared.
The old houses had odd layouts. Entering through the front door, you went into a courtyard. It was surrounded by an elevated ledge ringed with rooms all around. In most houses, the handpump and bathroom were outside, so residents were bound to get drenched on the way to using them on rainy days. This was also why the floor was always covered in wet, muddy tracks. Housework was usually done with water stored for that very purpose. The floor of the kitchen was perpetually flooded. Housewives usually wiped their wet hands on their saris, leaving them sodden from breast to belly. The end of a sari was used for almost every purpose imaginable. Women used it to wipe their sweat and then their tears. Then they wiped their noses with it, and used it to lift hot pots off the stove to prevent their hands from being scalded. It was used to wipe a plate before serving food on it. It always proved useful for wiping their children’s noses. Children quite often had snot running down their faces back then.
Several rules and laws had been laid down in ancient times to teach humans about cleanliness and sanctity and to lead a lifestyle of superior quality. But just as original pronunciations of words deteriorate into colloquial versions, these ancient laws had evolved into completely illogical yet universal and sacrosanct customs.
In the times I’m writing about, widows often caused a great nuisance just to retain their command over the household. In north Kolkata, one family had grown fed up with the behaviour of their widowed mother. Fresh water from Tala Tank always ran from their taps, but the widow flat-out refused to drink it. She stubbornly insisted that the water used for her cooking be brought from the Ganga. Every month, 10 rickshaws went to Bagbazar Ghat to bring back 20 pitchers of water for her. The water had to be fetched the day before Ekadoshi – any later than that and the water of the Ganga would turn salty, bringing tiny, ant-like crabs with it. One room in their house had been set aside just to store these pitchers. Once the water settled in the pots, a thick layer of mud collected at the bottom. The widow drank the clean water that remained on top. She used it for cooking and sprinkled it outside every door in the mornings and evenings. The mud from the bottom was used for scrubbing dishes.
Chintamoni’s mother-in-law had been very fastidious as well. She used to love drinking tea, but only when there was jaggery in it. Although a widow in a Kayastha family, her customs and values were as rigid as a Brahmin’s. She’d passed on this exhaustive set of values to Chintamoni, and recited them all the time, even after being confined to bed. Chintamoni continued following these rules long after her mother-in-law’s death. But the gulf between proper sanitation and orthodox values had left its mark on her domestic life.
Excerpted with permission from Hidden Treasure, Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated from the Bengali by Ipsa S, Zubaan Books.
