My sunshine's blocked by drying "delicates"!!

The blog headline is totally exaggerated....coz my sunshine is not actually blocked but there is also NOTHING "delicate" about what's drying.

As we have already established in my previous blog posts that I live in Calcutta, which I insist on calling it in spite of the official name change, in a "moddhobitto, Bangali, para" ( middle class, Bengali, locality), in the southern shopping destination of the city. 

Any visitor to the city will tell you about how famous this area is coz this is the first place one is sent to to buy good local sarees and a very famous temple, on most list of to visit places in Cal, is nearby. I'm privileged to be here, bang in the middle of all the action but thankfully none of the din of the badly managed traffic or unruly "mob" of office, college or school goers reach me. Though from time to time I can't step out of my house because KMC has eaten up every inch of the pavement / footpath on my side of the road in a bid to expand the road space to make way for the ever increasing number of cars, which insist on travelling on these very narrow lanes to ultimately reach the same main road in just a round about way in addition to the tempos, garbage trucks, motorbikes, cycles, taxis, school buses ( we do not have public buses on these lanes, Thank God!) and hand pull rickshaws...pause for you to picture all of this please.....and foot traffic. And the ensuing chaos ends up right at my doorstep including the garbage floating in the water during the rains, mind you, honking, yelling, screeching and forcing me to sometimes tear my hair out coz though I'm on the first floor, "a lil above it all" I'm in a corner flat and get to see and hear the absolute mind numbing symphony from two sides....as if one wasn't enough!! ( I know I use too many exclamations but, all this seriously amazes me) 

But, this is not about all this...this is not about the noise or traffic or the clawing masses...today's blog post is way above that...literally. Today's post is about what's in the wind....more precisely what's blowing in the wind. It's about the washing that we hang out on our balconies or verandahs or terraces (for those who still can) to dry. It's about a particular piece of clothing that is hung out to dry in the wind. 

I knew someone who lived in Pune and had just moved into a new apartment complex. There was a strict rule in the society that did not allow residents to hang their washing outside in public view! I did not know how to react to this because this is something we've seen and done throughout our life and continue to do so. ( There is no other place in our kind of houses to dry the washing in) But this acquaintance adapted and hung their washing inside their apartment. I wonder what we'd do if we had to do that here!! Some people still haven't got over having their clothes hand washed by maids! 

Here, in Calcutta, we still have the luxury of having maids hand wash our clothes and hang them out to dry in the designated area where the sun and wind can dry them. A lot of people still do not have washing machines and dryers are an almost unheard of gadget! But, I can't blame them for that. Some houses don't have running water and for others the running cost of a washing machine would be too high and eat into a carefully balanced budget. And several others have a misconception that washing machines to do not clean clothes "properly" and the strange ones who don't like the idea of all kinds of clothes being washed together...they find it icky...go figure.

Wayyyyyy off track!! (making a mental note of another blog post about the traffic and one about available affordable local labour). Now back to what's blocking my sun....errr view....errr nothing actually, just bugging me big time. So the post. 

All around me I see men and women drying their inner wear...under garments...briefs...lingerie...delicates...call it what you will...or don't call it anything if you so wish...out in the open. In full view of neighbours, visitors and the unavoidable voyeuristic passersby. This piece of clothing so personal to the women of the household that it has to be hidden from family when being carried in to the bathroom before a bath or when it's dry and folded, has to be quickly hidden under other pieces of clothing away from curious eyes. But, that doesn't stop it from being proudly displayed in the open on lines or on the grill!! ( not the bar-b-que silly...the cage thing we have on our balconies and windows in hopes of keeping thieves and robbers and crows out and children safely in). I see them hanging in all it's glory, this piece of inner-wear...the panty...clip in place...fluttering in the wind and wonder if I'm the prude here! Actually, the thought of it disturbs me...what if there's some kind of a pervert around who'd see mine and do God knows what!!! What a horrifying thought.... (Got me a glass of cold water to get over that...phew)

Someone close to me calls them granny panties!!...because they're big and thoroughly unattractive. But, I do know they are practical so I do not judge anyone based on their choice of inner-wear because if it makes them comfortable, so be it. Hell, I wear exactly what I want and am yet to hear of complains ;) but that's coz I don't give 'em reasons to... *blush blush*.

Houses in my para are built quite close to each other and the road passing through being just two car widths broad puts us almost in the living rooms of neighbours across the road...obviously it means that their balconies are quite literally "in your face" and so are the clothes out to dry...hence my issue with the "no frills attached" garment de jour... Coz they're ugly (not a word I appreciate my son using coz I think it's derogatory), they're mostly of the darker shades of the colour palette (for reasons obvious to the informed. For the uninitiated.... I'm sorry but I do not wish to explain that here), they're huge (probably coz it's a hot and humid climate most of the year here and loose fits are appreciated) and they hang gay and proud proclaiming the "forwardness" of the owner and at the same time declaring that the owner is "educated" (The mass and the under privileged still wear no under garments) and they have a horrible elastic band around the top and around each leg that bite into the wearer's skin and covers everything that need to be covered and everything that don't need to be, including a large part of the waist almost reaching the stomach!! They are hung out to dry, every time a member of the household takes a bath, following which the ritualistic hanging-out-to-dry of the said garment. So if I care to sit out on my balcony and do not wish to view the panty lined view, I'm restricted to looking upwards to the patch of sky or downwards towards the garbage strewn street or at the only tree in my stretch of the road which thankfully is bang opposite my bedroom balcony. Some of us have learnt or taught ourselves to be discreet with the drying of our delicates....what stops the rest from picking up on that? I don't see anyone shying of picking up language or food habits that they're unaccustomed to.. (patch of preaching...sorry, couldn't help the lineage of teachers in the family)

Well, the long and short of it is...that my neighbours' panties scandalise the prim missionary schoolgirl in me, tauntingly blowin' in the wind, baskin' in the sun to it's ghastly heart's content...no strings attached!!!!!!!