Leaving no trace behind

Social etiquette precludes discussion on certain topics, and high on my list of thought provoking subjects that are seldom discussed is methods of cleaning up after, well, doing potty.

Indians, and I suppose, citizens of other so called less developed countries grow up using water for the clean-up after the big job. The delivery mechanisms vary, from the old fashioned and common “mug, hand and soap” approach, to the more recent hand held jet (my personal favourite) and the nozzle at the back of the seat that shoots a well directed spray into the cleaning area.

The hand held shower wins my vote as it achieves the twin objectives of using water to do the job, and does away with any need to touch the object of the cleaning exercise. Brief aside: the hand held shower evokes memories of a true life incident. One of the families in the Chennai apartment block where we lived a few years ago, referred to the device as “ass washer”. The lady of the house assumed that was the official term for the device. When they were shifting as tenants from one apartment in the building to another, the lady innocently asked the prospective landlord, a typical conservative Tamil Brahmin gentleman in his seventies, if the bathrooms in the house were fitted with ass-washers! I heard this anecdote from the lady’s husband, and would have loved to be there to see how the conversation proceeded after that.

One of the key adjustments for an Indian moving overseas is adaptation to alien cleaning techniques, i.e use of tissue instead of water. For some of us, this is unimaginable and something we can never quite reconcile to. [“Is it possible to have a bath with only a towel and no water? Then how can you possibly do this?!]. The use of water remains the preferred approach among the adult inhabitants of my home, although the toilet roll remains an available option for visitors who prefer “dry cleaning” and kids who are more culturally flexible.

There is nothing more fake than a five star hotel in India with only toilet rolls and no mug in the toilet. It beats me as to how the management of a hotel can be so staggeringly insensitive to local custom. They run the risk of fine crockery kept in the hotel room being employed for unintended purposes.