Tuesday, August 10, 2010

An "uncivilised" bath, almost.

I got the opportunity to have an almost-"uncivilised" bath after nearly 8 years, i.e., a bath out in the open, under the blue sky, birds flying overhead and the vibrant smell of nature - the fresh, tangy and minty fragrance of air where there are trees around, and of course the most pleasurable significant of all, this God's own breeze vying with sunshine to hit my skin in hitherto completely unexposed regions. In other words, a bath in the lap of Mother Nature. I call it 'almost' because it was not wholly in the wild. I was on the terrace of a house with the facility for such a bath. The house is located in a green surrounding and having a garden as well, away from pollution. Hence, I was not in the sterilised environment of a modern bathroom, closeted away from the healing touch of nature. Imagine the pores of all my skin soaking in sun and air as Nature wanted us to soak them in. I felt as complete and uncivilised as an animal would. Of course, I have never been able to find out from an animal how it feels as a creature of Nature. But I wish we could understand from them what it is to give to Nature and take from her multifold, and live as one of Her family; and so stop becoming more and more civilised and move farther and farther away from Nature, her nature, and her gifts - like taking an uncivilised bath, but oh so gloriously healthy.

I think it is these havens of uncivilisation that are keeping mankind still happy and going, in all the flurry refinement and ostentation of civilisation. Wherever we are uncivilised, we dont need to be developed, civil, polite, urban, pragmatic, rational and sane; We are free to be pagan, wild, content, insane and undiscovered. Discovery and development seem to be the yardsticks of a civilisation. And we discover different civilisations to have them clash with each other as well.

We humans need to continue giving ourselves enough uncivilised baths to wash away the dirt of civilisation.

No comments:

Post a Comment