Dirty Fan

At least three months. I hadn’t looked at the fan hanging from the ceiling. The blades have lost their shine. Who would dare predict its original color? A layer of dirt, probably with a touch of soot, has clung on to all the three blades almost equally. Dirt has concentrated along the edges, its thickness consistently reducing towards the centre. Winter is a good time to reflect on fans!

Certainly a lifeline in the hot Delhi summers for those who cannot afford air-conditioners, every effort was made to ensure that this device never stopped rotating. And now I realize that I didn’t care to glance at it for all these months because I never needed it, thus allowing dust to gather around it.

As I write this, my parents are here on a visit. They have worked hard all these years- before and after my birth, trying to bring me up with the best they could afford, like almost every parent in this world. And thus I am not overly grateful to them; it is certainly their duty and I hope to do it in the same or a better way. But when their greying hairs peek out of the artificial hair-dyes, they send out a message. All those years they have provided me fresh air by continuously rotating all day and all night, they have exhausted themselves and gathered dirt. Like the fan which heats up from uninterrupted motion, their temper has gotten ‘hotter’. From excessive wearing out, they sometimes tend to refuse to ‘rotate’. I get irritated. Never did I try to wipe off that layer of dust and remind myself of the pleasant breeze they helped me enjoy in summer.

It’s high time I take up the wiping cloth….