It’s infuriating. And funny and sad, at the same time.
You’d imagine 5-star hotels, like the one I was in a couple of days ago, would be a little sensitive. But this particular one in Kolkata couldn’t care less about your ass (or mine, or anyone else’s for that matter). However, because I’m a little more caring, I won’t name the hotel, but since I have a sore bum, will provide discreet clues (like it’s in downtown Kolkata, close to Chowringhee and is situated on a street by the same name as the hotel) so that you can figure out for yourself.
They probably still live in the British Raj. Or, are so proud of their heritage that they fail to look around them. For even if they were to look into shanties and slums that abound in the City of Joy, much less peek into the fabulous bungalows of the Bhadralok in Ballygunge, they’d realize their folly. But no, a hotel chain their calibre won’t stoop that low, of course. Never matter if you feel sore or become a germs-carrier.
Their top brass won’t use their graying grey cells either. Or listen to plain logic that a child could offer them. Because they fear they will no longer be included in the Leading Hotels of The World. Who knows they may even lose respect in the developed world. Worse, they might even lose occupancy. Yet, they’re OK with that stuff remaining stuck in those remote crevices of yours all day long (and sometimes, God forbid, even through the night!)
Maybe I should’ve called the General Manager. Or, better still, written to their flamboyant owners, on the rolls of paper they so generously provide in each room! Unfortunately past experience tells me this would have had little effect; and least of all, on my backside.
Or, maybe I should console myself that this is the price of progress. After all, the hotel is only emulating best practices followed in the developed West! Even though they might seem a bit unclean to my underdeveloped, er developing, mind!!
How else does one come to terms with the fact that you will not be able to wash your bum after defecating? Just because the top-class hotel in a leading Indian city will not provide running water next to the potty, even in a fancy suite? Frankly, being 100% Indian, I find it so appalling that it cannot dawn upon fellow Indians that it’s not just foreigners who stay in hotels in India. Or that if they were to look up statistics, they would easily see that a majority of cultures actually wash and do not wipe. Maybe they should organize a conference about this matter and host it in their hotel, so that all concerned can experience the debate first hand. Unfortunately, till the time the asses learn that it is much more hygienic to wash with water rather than wipe with tissue paper, we will have to live with rashes on ours!
Fact is, I’ve been so disturbed by this sad but basic fault in somebody’s thinking that I’ve even forgotten what I’d gone to the hotel (or the city) for, in the first place. Nor have I been able to enjoy the good food that’s so lovingly laid out in the restaurant, for fear of putting pressure in the wrong places!
P.S. The picture, in case you're dying to know, is what you see from said hotel's backside.
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