Taking Bath

Taking bath, like so many other things, has become so complex these days, hasn’t it?

I mean, in the olden era, people – I am guessing here – used to stay near streams and a dip in the stream constituted a bath. Gradually, as population increased, and many streams dried up, and Government pitched in to transport water from mainstream rivers to taps of all homes, bath constituted of a bucketful of water into which a mug is dipped in and poured over body.

Then came the varieties of buckets, the biggest one being the bath tub wherein water is poured in to the brim and one immerses completely inside it so to get back that feeling of having a bath in the stream. Of course, this water is stagnant and one has to empty and re-fill the tub multiple times to really cleanse oneself.

There was also the ingenious and most popular shower bath which doesn’t create this stagnancy but instead propels the water in jets at the body so as to have the dual effect of relaxation as well as cleansing. It is extremely addictive.

In parallel, the chemical industry boomed. First to market them were the Soap industry. Apparently, water isn’t sufficient to cleanse the dirt out of the body. So, soap was a must. Variety of soap came into market. Somewhere, it seemed, its objective was lost and ‘fragrance after bath’ became the order of the day and the soap which permeated the best fragrance became the best soap, the soap to be boasted of!

Suddenly, not to be outdone, came a myriad of other chemical products – each a must in bath. Shampoo for the hair. After shampoo, a conditioner was a must. Body Lotion. Liquid soap. Face (only) Wash Soap. Hand (only) Wash Soap.

Then, specifics to the type of bath (shower, bath tub, etc), more products came. Shower cap, bubble bath, candles – Jeez, man!! – and finally, shops for bath! Suddenly, taking a bath was the most complex thing! One had to shop for hours together to get the right material and the right color of the bathroom products befitting the color of the bathroom to take a simple bath. Its really mind blogging, er, I mean, mind boggling!

As I always say, the world has over-complicated itself!