Peoples! I gots a confession to
make. If I were in a Whatever Anon meeting, I’d start as, “Hi there! My name is
____, I am 21 years old and I am addicted to blowing soap bubbles”
Yes.
You heard that right. I cannot get over this habit. Even my family, which has
seen me at my best and my worst are perpetually puzzled by my fixation for
something so seemingly silly. My mother tells me “Act your age!” every time I
give her that longing look when we see a vendor selling the wand and solution for
bubble making at gardens, fairs, festivals, and whatnot. My dad goes one step
further. He says “Act at least HALF your age!” when I look at him, after being
shot down by my mom. But what I fail to understand is, why can’t anyone else
see how therapeutic and delightful this activity can be?
My
earliest memory of bubbles goes back to when I was about three or four years
old and my father would make the solution for me by adding some dishwash powder
(you know that yellow stuff that our bais
and moms would coat on copper and bronze vessels till the blackness went away?
That.) to some water. My improvised wand was the dried leaf of a papaya plant.
For folks who don’t know, the leaf stem of a papaya plant is hollow. Makes a
great bubble wand. Ah! Those were the days, armed with just a bowl of soapy
solution and a cut papaya leaf’s stem, I would while away my mornings blowing
bubbles and giggling as I watched them float. Then I would invariably slosh the sudsy solution down my flannel pyjamas which I would be duly reprimanded for.
Have
you actually seen a bubble float? Like, taken the time to observe each and
every froth fairy that you are responsible for creating? They’re so perfect.
Each and every one of them; big or small. The larger ones are ever so slightly
clumsy, wobbling around in shapes of ellipses or ovals until they bob gently
away as contended circles. The smaller ones are always faster, obviously
because they’re much lighter. They swirl away, eager to be free, borne so
effortlessly in the air.
I
always was of the opinion that a burst bubble is not something to be sad over.
Bubbles, to me, are extremely confident things (I can just barely refrain from
calling them ‘creatures’); so sure of where they’ve come from and where they
want to go. Even if they make it an inch away from you before popping, they do
it so merrily, you can’t help but think ‘That bubble’s life’s intention was to
float one inch and then die’.
There
are those funny Siamese twin bubbles; two of them joined together because a new
one formed while the old one hadn’t been detached from the wand. Despite being
round on all other sides, their detached sides are always flat. They float with
the slightest hint of incoordination, like each one has made up its own mind to
go a different way. One bubble always pops before the other and the now unbound
one always floats off gleefully, as though glad to be able to move
unrestricted. As a child, I would blow air into the soap solution through my
straw, hoping to create foam. The largest of the foam bubbles would be scooped
by straw and I would set free four or five conjoined bubbles, just to see who
would survive the longest.
 |
That's just a few of the bubbles I was making this very afternoon |
I’ve
often experimented with the location of bubbles. Sometimes I sit in a really
quiet room. During such times, bubbles move sluggishly, inching their way to
the floor. Sometimes they spiral slowly around each other like cautious butterflies,
rising at first and then falling. If there is silence around, you can hear the
sound they make when they pop. It’s like a cross between a plop and a ping.
Sometimes I stand out in the open or just near my terrace or a window. Its
pretty fascinating how a bubble starts its adventure slow, and then is briskly
taken away by a breeze to destinations unknown. Blowing bubbles in a room with
the fan turned on to full is another thrill altogether. Suddenly, you’re in the
foam flurry with bubbles EVERYWHERE doing the St. Vitus’ dance and popping into
foam flecks before you can even blink.
A
bubble’s colour! Oh, if I could, I would write poetry about a bubble’s colour.
Some bubbles are shy; just plain and transparent, not that their charm is
diminished in any way by it. Certain bubbles glimmer gold; like they hold
sunlight in them. Some shimmer with myriad hues of pinks and purples and blues
and green… An ever-shifting, utterly mesmerizing kaleidoscope.
There
is, of course, a scientific explanation for all the hues, but when you are
faced with a multitude of glob shaped rainbows in front of your eyes, will you
be enraptured by the sight or will you try calculating the refractive index of
the soap solution? That shows the kind of person one is, his or her capacity to
wonder; to marvel at the smallest of miracles. In a world where cynicism is the
order of the day, I am absolutely
unapologetic about seeking delight in my (however childish) hobby.
[Also,
as a young adult who’s mind is partially, if not ALWAYS in the gutter, some
phrases in this piece leap out at me with their dirtiness. I am fully
responsible for all the puns you may have read, although they all were
unintended. But if it made you smile, you’re welcome]
~ I
