Dust...

Yesterday was one of those rare days when there is no one at home but me and my mom. Left on my own, I would probably have spent it reading or sleeping or blogging. But that's not the case with my mom. She usually jumps at the thought of having the house to herself so that it can be cleaned without any interruptions or disturbance. So I was roped in and thus started Operation Dirt Extermination...

So there I was with a scarf tied around my face, closely resembling the Bandit Queen (only difference: she held a gun while I have a broom) , ready to fight the enemy. We removed the carpet and the furniture and cleaned every nook and corner. I felt so nice getting rid of alll that dirt. But, one must never underestimate the enemy. Dust, using cunning, unfathomable strategies wafted into my nostrils (inspite of the scarf, sigh) and that was it...after that all that could be heard from me for the next 1 hour was..."Achooo!!" at an average rate of at least 3 sneezes per minute (u c, i'm allergic to dust).

After that the scene went somewhat like this:

Mamma: Nidhi, bring that stack of files here.

Nidhi: Achhoooo! (stack of files falls and consequently, the floor is covered with files)

Mamma: (After tut-tutting and remembering her God) I think that shelf there needs dusting...

Nidhi: (proceeds to dust, note what an obedient and helpful daughter I am hehe) Achhooo !! (and I shan't be able to describe what happened. Suffice to say the shelf looked messier than ever)

Mamma: (here is the whole list of names my Mom uses) billi, ghoda, hathi, ullu, idiot, antiflant, shantiflant (don ask me what that means, i have the remotest idea. They're words she invented)

etc etc

However, it was finally done! So I decided to do a li'l bit of research on dust. Here's what I found out:

Dust is made up of all kinds of stuff. Anything that is dry and light enough to be blown around and carried by a light breeze can be called dust. Here are some things that make up dust: ash, salt, tiny insect bodies, soil, pollen, (ok, this much I knew. Here’s what I did NOT know) dead skin cells (from people and animals), minerals from space and many other little bits and pieces of things.

There's a passage in the Bible that says we're all dust and to dust we will return. What I realized is that a little bit of us returns to dust every day. When you find dust around your home, a lot of it came straight from you in the form of skin cells that are constantly flaking off. (So as long as you and your family choose to live indoors, there's going to be at least some dust to clean up.*sigh* )

70% of the dust in our houses is actually made up of discarded skin cells!! That kind of made me think of how we deteriorate a little every moment… When we sweep under the bed we find hard evidence that we are literally not the persons we once were. However, on the positive side, it also shows that our body is continuously renewing itself – discarding some things and replacing them with fresh new ones. While our body can do this so easily, without us even knowing, it takes some effort to keep our mind and thoughts fresh. Hmmm… maybe we could do the same with our thoughts – discard negative ones and let nice, positive ones take their place.

Ok u know that thousands of meteors enter the earth’s atmosphere everyday. They burn up and turn to dust. And some of the dust from outer space settles in the nooks and corners of our homes. So what I call dust is actually made up of bits and pieces of me and my family and of star dust from shooting stars! That’s kind of nice.

And dust isn’t all that bad also. I mean, if it weren’t for dust, we wouldn’t be here. The universe was, after all, at first only a ball of swirling gases and dust. Comets are made up mostly of dust. And, of course, it is thanks to dust that we can see our beautiful sunrises and sunsets in various shades of red, pink and orange. And it is dust that makes the sky blue. Ah well…maybe it doesn’t deserve all the curses I shower on it. I don’t know about my mom, but I’m never gonna look at dust the same way again.

Now…only if it wouldn’t make me sneeze…