Under the bed.

Just as all civilizations have an underbelly, we had an under the bed.

Perhaps it was not the underbelly (I hasten to clarify), but more of an underground. It was almost as if an alternate home life was going on down there, a sort of a counter culture.

For example, I revolted against calcium supplements and threw my daily calcium tablets under the bed- down the little gap between the bed and the wall. (I hate calcium!) My brother hid his new cricket balls there, away from the prying eyes of his friends. When he wanted a new pencil or an eraser, he hid his old stuff down there too. He also had epilepsy as a child, and was forbidden from swimming, cycling, etc. He got his back by using the floor under the bed as a "swimming pool", and by lying down on the old red floor and practicing his "swimming". If you peeped under the bed on most summer days, you would find a little child lying there, flaying his arms about and practicing his butterfly and breast "strokes".

In her later years, when our grandmother had Alzheimer's disease, she stayed with us for a couple of years. She was failing fast, and doctors had prescribed, among many other things, a strict diet for her. But she loved to eat. She often sneaked out forbidden food from the kitchen and hid it below the bed- coconut-jaggery balls, spicy Indian trail mix, cream and custard and so on.

And of course there was my brother's nurse, Tulsi, who hid our parents' books and magazines under the bed, so that she could read them late at night, after work, and take them to her mother when she went visiting. Tulsi was an intellectual, and when my parents realized this they let her have free run of their books, and there was no need for her to hide her reading material under the bed any more.

But that was the thing. Everyone who used the under the bed abided by a silent code, and ignored how the others were (mis)using it. The only time the truth was swept out (literally) was during the monthly cleaning, when all four of us- brother, grandmother, Tulsi, and me- stood in a line and quailed with fear at mother's sharp-tongued reprimand.