Man From Matunga

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May 26, 2006

Water, water everywhere, but not a tissue to dry

This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.

Two Mondays back, this paper ran a hilarious story on the absence of water in the wash-rooms of some of the five-star hotels in the suburbs. Apparently, the individual concerned had filed a complaint with the BMC and there was a graphic description of how people who needed to wash rather than use tissue might have to climb up on the basin to fulfill their water needs. I wonder why Morparia hasn’t done a cartoon on this – I just can’t get this picture out of my head.

His biggest grouse of course was that we Indians are water-based people and to provide only tissues and no water for cleaning goes against the “Indian” grain and therefore is not acceptable. Many years ago, Mrs. Maneka Gandhi had also commented on this, finding the use of tissue paper abhorrent, but I presume, more from the environmental paper-conservation issue than anything else.

Both of them will love Matunga. Specifically, the restaurants in Matunga, since Matunga in any case does not have five-star hotels and the nearest one at Parel, the ITC Grand, also is water-less in its toilets.

A good number of restaurants in Matunga don’t have rest-rooms anyway, so there is no problem. But there are some, which do have toilets. And these are the ones that have only water for cleaning, with absolutely no tissues at all.

Picture this. You’ve had some awesome fiery pav-bhaji or mysore masala and suddenly you feel the urge. You rush to the restroom, do your business and then clean yourself with the water. And then you’re stuck. With no tissues, how do you wipe yourself dry? Do you just wait for your underwear/panty to absorb the water, or do you wait till natural drying occurs.

The absence of paper manifests itself at the wash-basins as well. After eating (and don’t tell me you have dosas and idlis with a fork and knife), you need to wash your hands. Washing is fine, because there is ample water. But after that you need to dry them. And that’s where the problem arises. Most provide a towel for wiping your hands on. But this towel has been used a good number of times by people before you and unless you can find a corner which is still dry and therefore has not been wiped on before, you’re stuck.

Most of the times, you then land up using your handkerchief or the front of your jeans, if you are wearing one. Which is ridiculous. The best option here would be to provide paper napkins from dispensers, like the ones from Kimberly-Clark, which are ubiquitous now at airports, in malls and in those famous rest-rooms of the five-star hotels.

Which of course brings us right back to the use of paper and its many critics. But honestly, give me hygiene and disposable material for wiping and cleaning anyday over having water dripping from all parts of your body or having to use a towel or napkin that someone earlier has used.

Of course, the best solution would be to have the all-in-one, no-touch Japanese toilets, which dispense water for cleaning, provide air jets for drying, warm your exposed skin and also check your urine for sugar and alcohol. The only problem then would be that you might not want to leave the toilet room at all. Which on a bad day may not be such a bad idea…especially if the toilet came with a DVD viewer as well!

Posted by bhavinj at May 26, 2006 11:15 PM

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Posted by: avidreader at June 18, 2006 06:03 PM

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