Bathmen

      

         One of the most refreshing, yet lazy; overhated, yet overemphasized; controversial, yet a somewhat compulsory thing in our life is bath. Yes, that drenching – refreshing 1.5 to 45 minutes long action called bath. 

There are many categories of bathers (don’t worry bathers is an official word, I checked on google). Similarly, there are many ways to categorize them too, i.e. there are many criteria. Like frequency, passion, duration, method, etc. Let’s have a look at them.

Firstly, there are normal bathers. They bathe, only for the sake of cleanliness and refreshment. They bathe, only to bathe. That’s kind of boring, don’t you think? You can do sooo many things while bathing. You can listen to your favorite songs; repeat your favorite scenarios where you are the hero; gain peace of mind, etc. However, all you do is bathe!

Anyways, next are the rare bathers. Again, there are two subtypes in this category. First up are the busy – rare – bathers. These people are usually very passionate about their work and just don’t get time to bathe. These are the focused people. But then there are lazy – rare – bathers. They bathe very rarely; and that too mostly because of their family’s forcing. It’s not like they hate baths, but they just don’t feel like it. But but but, when they do bathe, they don’t get out of the bathroom for hours. It’s like they cover up a whole month’s quota and don’t bath again for the whole next month!

Then come the dramatizers. The passionate non–bathers. Alternatively, bath–haters. These people just don’t want to bathe. And they justify this unwillingness diplomatically through weirdly logical reasons like water conservation and the needlessness of daily baths with so-called scientific proofs. They find their happiness & peace in that sweaty dirtiness. Moreover, they are proud of that! Like, seriously? You are proud that you are carrying the same sweat since last week? Dude, it’s not cool as you think it is… It’s rather disgusting. 

After them, we have a special category, ‘Night bathers.’ Again, these are often people who don’t get to bathe in the morning. So they compensate it at night. Not gonna lie, that bath is really satisfying. In the morning, we are usually in a hurry, we have something to do next. So we don’t always get to enjoy it to its fullest. But when we bathe at night, everything is done. That bath is timeless. We relieve all our stress in that shower. We let go of everything. And that chilly feeling after the bath hits hard!

Now we have a special category, The bath freaks. These people just love baths. They want to get a shower the moment they get sweaty. If they are adults, nothing proceeds in their house without a bath. They crave a bath. Nevertheless, that’s kind of good right? They practically crave chilly cleanliness. They bathe at least twice a day in normal circumstances. However, if it's summer, bathing thrice a day is mandatory. 

I have an honorable mention here. We're not really supposed to do it while bathing, but a bath is incomplete without it. Yes, the bathroom singing! Bathroom singing is a weirdly indivisible part of the daily bath. Those songs are the most heartfelt and free ones. No one hears us singing (at least according to us). So there's no hesitation. No obligation to sing well, in tone. We just, sing. They are the real stress busters. Everyone reading this has sung in the bathroom!

Now we have a different criterion to classify bathers. It's ‘How’ do they bathe. Some people bathe in the shower, some people use a bucket, while some people bathe in a bathtub! People using a bucket and a shower are pretty normal. It depends on your mood which way to go. Showers are continuous, descent, chill. If the temperature is perfect, you feel like standing in the showers for hours, right? And you practically feel the stress-relieving. But that’s the difficult part. Most of my time is wasted adjusting to a perfect temperature. Nevertheless, bucket baths are great too. Even if the water flow is discrete, the feeling of that heavy dense flow of cold water covering your whole body is really special! But but but, if you bath in bathtubs, hands down you get one of the best feelings. You are literally submerged in water the whole time! You go into a whole new realm when you go inside the water, and you come out all refreshed! It requires a lot of time and water though… 

Lastly, we have the bath modifications according to seasons. In spring or even in monsoon season, when it’s not too hot or too cold, bathing once a day for say 4-5 minutes is sufficient. But when it's winter, we get out of that freaking bathroom as soon as possible. We don’t ever dare to go beyond 3 minutes. We don’t want to freeze ourselves right? But when it's summer, any normal non – bath – hater bathes at least twice a day, for more than 7 minutes. That’s the convention. 

Yeah, this was all about the seemingly insignificant action in all of our lives, bath. I am pretty sure that during your next bath, you will be mindful of it. Anyways, it’s summer, right? I need to take a bath. So Adios to all my Bathmen! The Puzzled Falcon is gonna take a bath now!