Toilet Paper and Cold weather -1
This for the reader, is an introduction to life abroad, far away from home and the equatorial conditions that were so favourable that all I did was complain when experiencing it. This post is an ode to the small things that were taken for granted and things that I miss.
It has been quite a while since I have been in this situation, Almost 4+ years. I wasn't forced or anything, I came out of my will into this so now I don't even have anyone to blame. Consider this an unwritten page in any person from the Indian subcontinent.
There are things that I miss quite dearly in my life abroad (apart from family of course but I do call them every day, technology has taken care of that for me)
- The bum gun
- The Sun
The Bum Gun
For an Indian, growing up in India the first important item in the morning was water. Whether it was in urban India where you have bum guns that can point and clean or the majestic lotas with which people can be seen walking to do their morning rituals. Since I grew up in the city I am more used to the bum guns in our toilets.
For the uninitiated please find the picture of a bum gun below this paragraph, it is a magical device that can clean your bum after faecal expulsion.
In the western world, a slightly less comfortable process is the norm, which is wiping the behind with a paper and hoping that things are good. As a person who has used water all his life this seemed outrageous but what do you know about something that hasn’t been tried.
So I did try using toilet paper, but my mind was playing with me already at this point. It refused to accept that toilet paper, yes the great toilet paper over which people fought at the beginning of the pandemic would actually do a decent job.
Logic also pointed at the same thing. When we drop tomato sauce or anything on our skin the area when cleaned with a tissue becomes sticky and irritating. So something similar is happening in the task of excretion. So it didn't make sense to use a dry piece of paper and I still yearn for the bum gun in my dreams.
So what and how do I manage now, I chose a house which has an Italian Bidet in their toilet over a house that didn't and this has helped me a lot.
