09/01/2023
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Celebrating the Mundane
15/12/2020
This bunch of wool tied together to a wooden stick maybe as small in length from your arm to elbow but it has immense significance in the Jain culture. The Augha is not referred to as jhadoo because in Jainism the Jhadoo is used to sweep away all dirt and impurities that are mostly the dust or the non living dirt. The Augha sweeps the cobwebs and other insects in the house without harming them. Calling the Augha a jhadoo becomes offensive as Augha is considered to perform something much more careful that the regular jhadoo with sweeps everything else. The Augha considers the lives of the small insects and organism therefore it is given that respect as well.
Photo and story :
11/12/2020
The stories that we share about the variety of jhadoo tell us how different the idea of cleanliness is for people. As our ideology of cleanliness get shaped by geography, beliefs and availability of material and a various of other reasons it eventually shapes the jhadoo to. And we get to see unique jhadoos in different materials, forms, shapes and structure each with a different or sometimes similar purpose. But what remains central here is that all becomes a common man of the tool, the mundane object.
09/12/2020
Paridhi Dhariwal shares the image of Augha or Charwala used at her home in Ujjain. Her grandmother who even today follows the Jain lifestyle tells us the importance of this tools.
The Augha or Charwala is used for cleaning cobwebs in their house. This is a bunch of woollen yarns that are held together and tied to a wooden stick. The woollen yarns ensure that that the cobwebs are cleared without harming the spiders or any other insects.
Paridhi’s grandmother says that this tool is used in Jain households because their culture associates dirt and impurities in an entirely different picture. The microbes and insects are also living beings and cleanliness shouldn’t be achieved at the cost of their lives, because they are also important parts of our ecosystem.
05/12/2020
One needs understand the importance of jhadoo in India which is more than a tool used for cleaning or its associated religious and cultural practices.
Broom sector has a wide potential for providing employment to many tribal and rural communities. This sector of hand-broom production is mainly dominated by tribal community, who are considered as socio-economically poor community.
30/11/2020
•Brooms on Ramp•
AGNÈS B, a French fashion designer who often seeks inspiration from movies, says that she gets her inspiration from daily life, in the streets and that the thing she likes above all, is to style clothing, particularly working clothes.
The Paris Fashion Week Men’s SS19 collection perfectly represents the designer’s inspirations, the show started with the rising star of French cinema Rod Paradot dressed in a workwear jumpsuit accessorised with a broom. In this collection, Agnes B. tackles several worlds, starting with redesigned and restyled workwear with wide and short jackets and trousers, jumpsuits with zipped pockets, all in blue tunes. The above look belongs to this collection by the designer.
It is simply amazing how our everyday object ramp is also a superstar on the ramp. Also a great example of how the uniform of street sweeper/janitor becomes a workwear in fashion rather than the usual formal wear which are categorised in workwear.
Image and content source: Glass Magazine
25/11/2020
Ever wondered what the dust is that we sweep away everyday?
Dust is a collection of microscopic particles of material. Dust is a heavy enough to see and light enough to be carried by the wind.
Dust can be made up of pollen, bacteria, smoke, ash, salt crystals from the ocean and small bits of dirt or rock, including sand. Dust can also contain tiny fragments of human and animal ski cells, pollution and hair.
23/11/2020
What is done to the dust that is collected? Is it burned? Is it put on a waste bin that is disposed by someone else?
But in the end where does our collected dust end up.
Photo: .a.d.h.a_g
23/11/2020
A broom can clean different things from tiny dust particles to leaves and stones. But not everyone cleans the same. Certainly our spaces or surfaces determine what we clean but it is interesting to see that our ideas of cleanliness also shapes what we want to sweep. When one collects the dust from their space it is not just the dirt that comes along, a lot of unexpected objects also seem to appear. A toffee wrapper you enjoyed eating the other day? Maybe a ticket to a show you went for. Every household has a similar and a different discovery. What is that you find in your dust?
What is it that you clean? What is it that you collect while you sweep?
Tell us what you collect while sweeping!
16/11/2020
We are sure, every Indian child might have heard this in their lives growing up.
While superstitions surrounding our lives might be a big turn off for the present generation, probing slightly deeper reveal reasons deeply ingrained in our value system. However, it may also not be entirely correct to accept them, it is nonetheless interesting to know about their origins.
16/11/2020
From Sehore, Bhopal,Madhya Pranesh, shares these wonderful images of jhadoo pooja done at her house in on Diwali.
On the day of Diwali the jhadoo is worshiped along with the important tools/objects related to your occupation for elders and studies for children. Because on the day of Diwali it is expected that goddess Lakshmi (the godess of wealth) enters to your house and bless you with wealth, so the tools or objects in your everyday life that brings wealth is kept for pooja. Likewise, the jhadoo is also kept for pooja. This is because jhadoo removes all dirt and impurities and also it’s deeper association of dirt with poverty. It is is intersting to see how what cleanliness relates in different cultures and traditions of human lives.
16/11/2020
In an India, on the day of Dhanteras(the first day that marks the festival of Diwali) buying a broom is most important along with gold, silver and utensils. The purchased broom must be worshiped. The broom is considered to be the form of Godess Lakshmi.
Here one can understand the association of cleaning for Diwali, as most Indians might relate recently that the important task for Diwali will be the cleaning of the entire house before the festival than the preparations done on the day of the festival. These are done to invite the goddess Lakshmi to their house. With such deep rooted religious traditions followed in Indian households, one can understand the importance of cleaning in the people’s lives.
31/10/2020
Rhythm, postures and movements while brooming: An illustration from observation
by Aiswariya Shyam .shyam_
Depending on the technique and type of broom, this functional workout trains different parts of the body and provides both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. The traditional straight broom emphasizes the abdominals and other core stabilizers. If you are using sweeping as an exercise, start with a straight broom to warm up the core, then warm up the shoulders by using a stabbing motion to get the dirt out of corners. Then move onto the push broom for balanced fitness, front to back! It’s a complete workout.
31/10/2020
It is no surprise to us that daily sweeping and cleaning can be a good workout routine for our bodies. But did you know certain ways it can be achieved?
For loosing weight one has to create maximum metabolic fitness. This can be achieved with long slow movements where a true metabolic demand will increase fat burning. Starting slowly in your driveway with longer pushes increases your resting metabolic rate and helps keep your weight down.
For those of us who are older using a push broom brings a greater variety of muscles into play. The repetitive lunge motion uses the gluteal and quadriceps as the pecs and triceps are primarily worked. When you pull the movement engages the hamstrings, lats, and biceps. This offers you a more complete workout as it improves the muscle used for balance.
31/10/2020
It is of no doubt that one can term sweeping as the healthy practice of cleansing. Not just the street sweepers, but we can also adopt the habit of sweeping as a daily act for fitness and improving balance in life. The postures and motions that jhadoo makes the body to perform benefits one’s health in a way that it is equivalent to working out at gyms. So sometimes it might not be the heavier equipments that your body needs it might also be how active one can be with their daily activity. Just like the humble act of cleansing.
Photo: Michael Maniezzo
29/10/2020
It is interesting to see how the dust that we collect and surface from where we collect can be related to the jhadoo one uses. And sometimes we can even find a variety of jhadoos within the same household each for different purposes. Yet all of them share a similar story of a common activity of cleaning. But our ideologies of cleanliness shape our categories of dust and impurities. Ever thought about what is dust to you?
Which are the different jhadoos that you use?
27/10/2020
Meghna .soul shares with us this video of her 50-year-old Thaiji cleaning the chulha early morning after its use from the previous night. Once the ashes are swept from the chulha using the jhadoo it is swept with chikni mitti using a pocha. This ensures that the chulha does not shed itself due to the heat from cooking and maintains longevity of the object. The chulha is kept under the sky in the open after its usage as it requires time to cool down from the heat that it absorbs while cooking.
The act of cleaning here in the video done in every morning seems quite meditative with silence all around and the sound of chulha being swept along with the chirping birds seem like a very peaceful way to start the day.
27/10/2020
Like everywhere else, the chulha jhadoo at Meghna’s house is stored in the kitchen in a corner. Unlike the rest of the jhadoos this is used only to clean the chulha and kitchen. It is not used to clean anything other than that.
Is your jhadoo also kept in the kitchen?
22/10/2020
There is unique structure to the homemade Jhadoo from Meghna’s hometown in Barota, Haryana.
The first image shows a closer look of the handle’s end of the chulha jhadoo. The Jhadoo is a cluster of date palm leaves which are folded towards the end and held together. This is the secured as a handle in three different layers. The first layer is an aluminium foil which covers the date palm leaves. A rubber tube is then used to tie up these together making it the second layer. A piece of fabric is wrapped on top of this which traps all of it together and ensures that the leaves don’t fall off with usage.
The jhadoo is made by her grandmother which had been used for almost 15 years. Earlier the women in her village used to go get dry date palm leaves from the fields and they would sit and make these jhadoos and Bijma (handgun).
22/10/2020
As Meghna Dahiya spent her 6 months of lockdown with her family in her hometown Barota, Haryana, it was a time for her to rediscover her traditions and fell connected to the people and place. Through her story she tells us the process of cleaning the chulha on mornings as the chulha requires to cool down from the cooking from the previous night. And the mornings in the village is filled with silence and it is when people start their day slowly with the household activities. Cleaning of the chulha is done in this time of silence which makes one very involved in the process and enjoyable.
From the story that .soul has shared with us on the chulha jhadoo, one can say that the act of cleansing can be a peaceful and meditative process.
22/10/2020
The Chulha Jhadoo by Meghna Dahiya. .soul
Location: Barota, Haryana
Meghna tells us the story of a homemade jhadoo used for sweeping ashes from chulha (traditional earthern stove in India) in her hometown in Barota, Haryana. It is a tradition in her hometown to sweep the ashes from the chulha as it cleans the chulha preparing it for its usage the next time and ensuring it’s durability. These ashes are collected and later used as a fertiliser for the crops.
The Chulha jhadoo is used only in the rasoi (kitchen) and the house is cleaned by a separate jhadoo. This unique jhadoo is custom made by Meghna’s grandmother for whom the skill of making jhadoo is one among the many skills that the women in her village learnt before marriage.
20/10/2020
How often do you clean your brooms? Do you clean them right after you sweep the dust by juddering it against something? Or do you leave it under the sun? Or do you have your own ways of cleaning them? Or do you never clean the brooms at all?
20/10/2020
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, believed in letters – snail-mail, in today’s parlance. Soon after he assumed office in August 1947, Nehru began a tradition of writing a letter every fortnight to the chief ministers of all states, letters in which he spoke freely of the problems the country was confronting at the time.
One such letter was written to the chief Ministers requesting them to bring change to the form of broom the sweepers use in roads. They used the small ones. Nehru described their difficulties of using the brooms on roads and requested to provide them with a broom they can sweep while standing. He also mentions to provide uniforms to the sweepers.
Photograph: An associated Press Photograph from June 1946, released with the caption. “One of India’s ‘untouchables’ holds the broom he uses in sweeping out streets, yards and houses”.
Source: The wire staff
Full article available in the link in bio
20/10/2020
Do you use different brooms based on your comfort? Or do you use them based on their usage purposes? Is there a different name to the broom that you use? Tell us about your broom.
16/10/2020
The image of the sweeper woman from India tells a lot of her body activities. Not just the body. But also the manner in which the saree is draped around the body to perform her activity of cleaning. It is very interesting to see how the act of cleansing can lead to one’s way of dressing.
How do you adjust your clothing to the cleaning activities you do everyday? Or how does the person cleaning your homes do?
Image source: oldindianphotos.in
16/10/2020
Do you know what a person who makes broom is called? In the England the person is called a broomsquire. A broomsquire is someone who makes brooms for a living. It is a trade that was historically, usually unique to heathland areas of England. The broomsquire tended to use heather or birch twigs gathered from the heathland to make the brooms. They also grazed cattle or sheep on the poor vegetation.
Do you know what a broomsquire is called at your place? Answer in comments if you do.
14/10/2020
The first image by Frank G. Speck shows a Catawba woman named Sally Brown collecting grass to make broom in South Carolina. The second is of Jessica R. Locklear's great grandmother, who uses the sedge-grass broom to clean her yard, she belonged to the Lumbee tribe. Speck documented Sally Brown's image as he viewed it as an indigenous cultural practice of broom making. In his report " The Catawba Nation and its Neighbours" he concludes that the Lumbee tribe are an assemblage of remanent Indian tribes, but did not acknowledge their Indian identity until then. Speck struggles in accepting the identity of Lumbee tribe as indigenous where Jessica demonstrates her own story by comparing both the images, and refers to the usage of the broom by her grandmother as an indigenous practise.
It is fascinating to see how one associates the cultural identity with the object, our hero in the story, the humble sedge-grass broom through its material and usage.
Click the link in bio to read the original article by Jessica R. Locklear.
12/10/2020
In Nigeria, it is the practice of indigenous farmers to use the neem paste as a natural repellent to keep insects from damaging their fields. The application of the paste becomes much simpler when the paste is applied first on the broom. As the farmer sweeps the fields the neem paste gets evenly spread to the soil and also makes the application time saving for the farmer.
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