There was a time, the glorious, rebellious time of my teenage years, when the bathroom wasn’t just a functional space. It was my reading sanctuary. A place where literature flowed more freely than water. Not to miss the other flowy things which-should-not-be-named.
Armed with a mystery novel and a towel (only for optics), I’d lock myself in and perch upon my porcelain throne. Not even the lure of hot parathas or India-Pakistan cricket commentary could drag me out. Outside, life was chaos. Sister yelling, cousins wanting me out, pressure cookers whistling, parents seeking helping hands. But inside that little tiled universe? Silence. Solitude. Suspense.
And then, just as the detective was about to unmask the killer or the killer was about to unmask the detective, a single plop!
Oh you dirty-thinking sods! The plop was a lone drop of water from the tap landing squarely in a steel bucket.
I am letting you in on a secret here – a bathroom is not designed for the faint-hearted. Its acoustics, I tell you, can make even a drop feel like a gunshot. The plop in that perfect silence, I confess, was enough to jolt the book from my hands, question my heartbeat, and possibly awaken the scary spirits deep inside me.
But like the famed tail that never straightens out, I kept returning to my throne. Where else could I bite my nails in peace as the plot thickened, without my mother asking me to get some groceries. During those days there weren’t any apps, not that she uses any grocery apps even now, so the only way to get groceries was manual labour, and child labour at that. I was that child.
While others saw the bathroom as a necessity, I saw it as a literary cave of wonders. A portkey under magical spells designated to transport me to the world of my novels and comics. It was an ashram of suspense, where the only mantra was “just one more page.” Tell you what? My love for my Popcorn still undiscovered, it was difficult for anything / anyone to pull me out of my hiding.
Kahani Hai Na Amazing? Then let me remind you, Padhna Zaroori Hai.