Dirty Laundry Thoughts

Picture: www.pbase.com

It's a funny old world but I'd still have thought you didn't need to learn how to manually do your laundry.

My colleague was today telling me about her son and daughter who've both flown the roost and left the comforts of home to work or study in other parts of the country. She said her husband, who seems to be a pretty hands-on dad, had been teaching the son how to wash clothes since he'd be staying at a hostel which wouldn't have a washing machine.

Ah, the advantages of technology and labour saving machines. I'd grown up washing clothes from hankies to bedsheets by hand and the washing machine became part of our lives only in the mid 80s. But then I suppose for those born in the mid 80s, it's perfectly justifiable to not be able to even imagine ever laundering items like bedspreads manually. The soaking in water, the rubbing and scrubbing with washing soap, the rinsing and drying out in the sun. Manual labour. So tiring today but in the past we went ahead and did it all with no complaints because it was a way of life and there simply wasn't any other alternative.

It's strange though that with all the time and labour saving devices and inventions we now have at our disposal, life doesn't get any easier or less hectic. Seems like the more technology we use, the less we learn how to manage our time and lifestyles.

Brutal Frankspeak

Earlier last week I came across this pertinent statement that read, "It has been said that the need to write about one's life experiences, even in the absence of a reader, is crucial to the development of a sense of consciousness."

While blogging was probably the last thing the writer had in mind, I figure that it would make for a good rule every conscientious blogger worth his/her blog spot should swear by. Nobody reads the crap you type? No problemo. It's still a great way for you to grow into your own person. Develop a better consciousness of who you are, find out what makes you tick, and what ticks you off. A virtual couch session, I guess.

Sometimes I think it's a major hassle that other people cruise by and read your stuff because you can't crib as much as you want to. I don't know why but there seems to be some unwritten rule especially among the Mizo blogging community that expects you to always put your best face forward and never ever let on that you're human. You're supposed to swear undying love for your country (read - this 21,087 sq kms of hinterland), swoon over bygone customs and traditions, express shock, horror and condescension at the corruption, debauchery and decadence that's apparently sweeping everything in its wake, and loudly and vociferously attack politicians, bureaucrats, office workers and everyone else unfortunate enough to be working in Mizoram.

I'm tired of all these Mizo online sites that run amok with lower middle class sensibilities and attitudes. The noseyparker harangues on interracial marriages, the blatant moral policing, the unabashed politicizing of absolutely everything and anything, the herd mentality and 'fraidy-cat resistance towards folks of other cultures and races - the only times when plainspeople and places are damned with faint praise being when they're unfavourably compared to things here.

I'm probably treading on a lot of toes here but hey, I just don't buy that kind of twisted mentality at all.

~~~

My Song of the Rain

if i forget

the fungus growing
in the house
on the walls
in my wardrobe
in my bones,
forget the
whispers of white
streak a blue sky
the esthesis
of sunshine...
and watch the world
take on a new
perspective through
a camera lens -
a bleak
black
brooding
battered
element-ravaged
beauty,
then i love
the rain.