Not the house-napping type. I’m talking about how in Pakistan people can sort of get down on their haunches and just chill like that. Maybe not so much in the swish cities where everybody is super cool, but in the outlying areas they all kind of squat down quite comfortably don’t they?
I was in Pakistan at the same time as my cousin who left there as a young teenager. She lives in a very remote village. I was having a natter with her and she mentioned how it had been so long since she got down in front of the chulla to make the rotis it was hard for her to do it now.
But she still had to hehe.
Any members here got memories of being squatters? Have the joints seized up now or can you still do it with ease? Or is it just something that uneducated types do? Personally I think it’s pretty good. Flexibility is very important for health.
I remember those days when it seemed like we were living in the Army Barracks
papa would assign each of us cleaning jobs
even the doctor’s surgery would be no match for the cleanliness at our place
and not to forget the dhool and gard that is found in abundance in karachi
yeah so coming back to the squatting
so see, poor ol, lil me was assigned the jharoo bit
on sundays and saturdays since our kaam karnay wali used to go visit her family during the weekend
dammit now handling that heavy heavy phool jharoo in my lil lil tiny nazuk nazuk say hands was so hard
and then you have to kinda take care that the phool from the jharoo dont drop
and you have to squat down and sweep sweep sweep
all lemme count 1, 2, 3…7 rooms, plus the outside balcony and the stairs, I had to sweep in a squatting position and mummy would yell at papa and say ‘larki ko asi position main nahi bithatay hain’
and my bhai would do the poocha (so i guess it wasnt that hard afterall)
sometimes i would ‘mar dandi’ like i would kinda stand and sweep you know kinda bend your qamar
if papa wasnt around, but that was like once in a blue moon
usually he would be examining our art of cleaning the house and after that inspectioning how well we swept and dusted with a white glove
hehee…squat-walking…Anchal reminded of the jharoo days…though I was never “assigned” any such task, it would be a novelty for me to try it whenever I was visiting Karachi.
I would try to squat like the “kaam karnay wali” that came to the house, but no way was I able to last as long as she could. Ammi used to sit and laugh at my futile efforts…shaking all over, trying not to show how hilarious she thought my falling on my butt was. She would feign anger in her efforts to teach me the “proper way” of jharoo, poNcha when all along she knew I would eventually be ending up with Mop’N’Glo and the Bee Mop.
About the washrooms…don’t even start. I have heard that in some remote villages/towns there are/used to be “communal” keyholes dug out. Kind of like a place to meet up and chit chat. Yikes! How can anyone do that!!!
Well I wasn't really referring to the washrooms - I mean that goes without saying. really I was talking about the way people just can hunker on down while smoking a hookah for example.
I still remember when some guy pulled up in a tractor near our cane fields. He had two jaanglis - one perched on each wheel rim like budgerigars with earings dangling from their ears. They drove something like 30 miles like that.
I remember when I was little, I used to go to the pind school in the mornings, and puaa/nani/ammi/various aunties used to make parathas on the tavvi. I’d squat down (near whoever was making the parathas) and have my partha and two piyalis of chai, as did my cousins and siblings. Then we’d all race to the school.
I remember squat walking doing the jhaaro as well. Whenever the kaam wali maasi used to come, I’d try to copy her and help her, but the big jhaaro was too hard for me to handle, so I begged my mom to buy me a small one. Though I know I made more of a mess then I helped her, I guess it’s the effort that counts
Now to the bathrooms! As long as I lived in pakistan, I didn’t give it much thought since there was nothing else around but going and doing your stuff while squatting down (we were supposed to be thankful that at least we don’t have to go to the fields at odd times like our elders did—though the stories of them going to the fields are something, really). I also remember losing many things to the darn bathrooms, I’d cry my eyes out. (Thank God for the toilets). Last time I visited Pakistan, I refused to spend a night elsewhere than my nana ji’s house. I’d pinch my nose and hold my breath if I had to go otherwise.
Now over here, the only squatting I do is when I have to do poocha. My mom is still ANTI-mops, and poocha is done every other day. I’ve tried my best to convince her, nothing works, if I keep insisting then I get the lecture of how much more harder work she used to do when she was around my age.
I guess I am stuck with poocha until I get married. sigh
muhabatein theen kabhi apne dermian kitni…
bicha gaye hai anna hum mein doorian kitni…
abhi to toota hai dil hi teri judai mein…
girein gi hum pe abhi aur bijlian kitni…
I haven’t experienced the squatting phenomenon first hand.. never found it that fascinating actually.. but I recall visiting our house in pakistan and also my nana abbu’s house.. where the kaam vali’s squatted down and did the jhaaRo etc. They went from room to room without getting up. Now that I think back.. that musta been tough. I also remember doing a stop over at a village once.. I think we were driving back from rawalpindi.. and these were ammi’s cousins. They had a big house with its back on to an open field.. and a huge sehan with their one and only toilet.. made of 4-feet tall walls covering three sides with one big hole in the middle. I remember going.. WHOAH! "yeh kiya hay?? " bathroom hai baita.. ammi had told me. yea right. I ain’t going there. so ammi made them clear out the sehan that was filled with 30 some kids and 20 some adults.. I still wonder.. how do they do it? and then they tried to feed us pepsi in milk! Gosh.. that was some trip!
Squatting is a great pose for the act of sitting. As a matter of fact, depending on the kind of attire you are wearing (dhoti, shalwar, shorts with underwear, shorts without underwear, and finally, sweat pants with or without a hole at the junction of seams), it's almost an art (well, in my case it IS an art and in Ahmadi's case, it's perversion). But seriously, there is nothing more relaxing than to squat on the ground (as long as the ground is not wet).
Come to think of it, a lot of people squat in Pakistan. Whether it's jhaaro phairna or sitting in front of chulla or for mochi to repair shoes. But jharo phairna while squating is one tough exercise. I have no idea how our women manage to do that on daily basis.
That reminds me of a confusion I have, In my pind (Village) whenever I had to go out to attend a call of nature we use to go to PAILIAN (FARMS), specially sugar cane farm or Cotton farm and if I come across a women attending the same call, now this is serious no joke I still wonder why they always hide their face behind their shawl or DUPATTA but everthing else not covered. Please don't take it in wrong way, what is more important, cover your face or cover other stuff.
Is their any Paindo out there who can solve this for me... Please.....
(so i guess it wasnt that hard afterall)