I had my first cold water bath of the year yesterday.
Some of you might think I’m doing it a bit early. The majority of you will probably think I’m doing it very late.
While I’m not as extreme a hot water fanatic as Zubin- who reputedly has hot water baths well into June- I do admit that I like my weather and water warm. And as you will just have noticed, I also like alliteration, but that’s beside the point. Right now. Anyway. Coming back. Yes, hot water.
Apparently, I take after my maternal grandmother, who feels chilly even on Midsummer Night. While the rest of us are sweating buckets, she stacks blankets on top of herself.
While I’m not as extreme as Nani either, I admit that I don’t really feel the heat. I sweat so little that I actually enjoy the sensation when it comes. I go to my drawing room and bask in the sun, waiting for little drops to sweat to trickle down behind my ears and cool the bits of skin that get extra heat because of the insulation provided by my hair. This is something that even the rest of my family, who are equally, and in some cases, more insane than me, find weird and astonishing.
So, yes, a cold water bath at this particular time of the year- I started wearing only T-shirts just today- is something out of the ordinary for me. Here’s how it went.
I came home, suffering from the agonies inflicted upon me by evil deluxe bus conductors (see W-Fillet #12 for details) and decided to ease my pain with a bath. I also decided that it might as well be the first cold one of the year, since Delhi’s quite warm, especially compared to Patiala.
In the process of preparations- getting towel, fresh clothes, et cetera- I discovered that my brother, in conformance to his odd fetish, has kept only Dettol in the bathroom. I approve of Dettol for the washing of hands before meals, but using it to bathe with is ridiculous. A shower is something I now get only once every two weeks (why, oh why, did I move out of hostel B), and I intend to make it a pleasurable and sensuous experience, by Jupiter! A short trip to my parents’ bathroom, from where I retrieved a cake of Biotique plum-scented Aurvedic soap fixed that particular problem. Then I got down to work.
I can tell you, it wasn’t easy going. The minute I stepped under the shower, symptoms of analyptic shock stunned me. I stepped back, repelled by the water. Then, gamely, I tried again. Alas, it was with the same results.
After about two minutes of stepping gingerly into and out of the water stream, I decided enough was enough. I turned off the shower, and applied soap and shampoo. Then I turned the water back on, and stepped right back in.
Wooooooohh!! Wooh-wooh! Coldcoldcold! Ahhhh… refreshing!
What a wonderfully delicious sensation. After two weeks of mixing cold and hot water in buckets in my dingy hostel bathroom, and sloshing water over myself with mugs, this was a welcome change. The water literally blasted the lather off me, and presumably exfoliated any dead skin particles that may have been present. I stepped out of the bath with a glowing mood, not to mention a glowing complexion.
Now that I have restocked my bathroom with the essentials- Liril lemon shower gel (with loofah)- no more Dettol!- and Biotique Green Apple Shampoo- I anticipate that bathing will join breakfast as one of the most pleasurable pastimes home has to offer. Perhaps, like breakfast itself, bathing will become a twice-daily activity for me. If all my baths are as good as the one I had yesterday, I’ve got no complaints.
[…] The bathroom sees you through sickness- especially diarrhoea- and health. It’s where I do most of my reading, and thus enrich myself with noble thoughts. To unburden yourself of what you ate the previous evening, while at the same time unburdening yourself of your worries by reading Saki is heaven itself. As for showers- I have already discussed in great detail how delightful they are in W-Fillet #13. […]