The Struggles of Using an Indian Toilet

My house does not have an Indian style potty. I don’t know how, but sometime over the past decade of the realtors’ party, everyone who built a house chose to leave out the ceramic trench in the ground on which one could squat and poop away to glory. It could be an inconspicuous conspiracy of the West to make us forget the important life skills that come with squatting over bhinbhinaati makkhi’s, but as long as those little jets of stainless steel poke through triangular wings of a Mach 5 aircraft behind our toilet seats, we must try to not give in to such westernization completely.

I don’t wish to sound like a whine. I mean, yes, it scares me to use toilet seats at public places, where I hope there’s enough toilet paper for me to line the rim with before I gently lay my posterior on the wet throne. However, the sight of an Indian toilet with a semi-viscous pyramid lying bang in the centre sends more than a frigid chill down my spine. I wish that weren’t the case.

On my recent trip to Vaishno Devi when I had absolutely no option but to hold my shit together (literally), I kept hoping to do away with pooping for the day and a half that I was to climb uphill and then retreat. But there’s only so much that your delicate gut can hold when your diet on the tour is Rajma Chawal or Aaloo Poori. Being completely inept at squatting over a pit to poopify, here’s what ran through my mind when nature called.

“Damn! Not potty again! I mean, ek ghanta jab hotel mein pot pe baithe raho, tab toh kuchh hota nahi hai. And just when you’re like, two kilometres away, it comes running like an ex.”

“God, where am I going to poop now?! Must distract my mind from thinking about it.”

*after five seconds*

“It’s frikkin’ unbearable. My izzat is in bhagwaan ke haath today. Jai Mata Di. Jai Mata Di.”

“Shoot! Must not put so much zor! Calm down, breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale… Haha, this sounds like I’m pregnant and in labor… WTF, don’t push! No, no!”

*spots a toilet and runs funny towards it, holding both butt-cheeks tightly together, hoping nothing falls through*

“Damn! The Indian Toilet! How in frig am I going to do this! Aaj toh bas aar ya paar.”

Now, the Indigenous Indian Potty Mechanism (IIPM) appears to work in a simple way. You squat over a trench and poop. How hard could it be, no? Haha. Easy peasy! Except, that’s what it wants you to think till you actually begin to use it. *shiver and tremor*

You could be lucky enough to find a working latch on the door and no pile of poop chilling on the white ceramic like, “Hey bro, what’s up!” You must know that the Toilet Dev has been very generous to you. Jai ho! But, it’s just about time when you would hope that your Gayatri Mantra had a few words to the effect of “do not bring us to the test, but deliver us from evil”, because shit is about to get real!

The Western Toilet makes it convenient for you to pull down your pants and sit over it, comfortably swiping over your phone. But you mustn’t forget that the IIPM comes from the land of yoga. Among the paraphernalia, there is nothing in the name of a hook. So, your first challenge is to take off your shoes and then your pants and put them at a dry spot on the floor so that you can squat with no hindrance to your butt-hole. Except, the IIPM is built in an area where if every organ of your body is not slim enough to have six pack abs, sorry, you cannot fit inside the cubicle. Consequently, there isn’t any space to put your pants and whatever of the floor is left is completely wet. So, what do you do? You keep your shoes on, pull down your pants to your calves and sit like a frog having no idea about how you are going to save your pants from the trajectory of the bodily fluid that is going to accompany the poopsauce. (Guys would understand; girls would not).

The second struggle comes in balancing yourself with feet over the slabs on either side. You need to open your legs wide enough so as to not fall inside the trench, and hope that you’re not wearing jeans so tight that they tie your legs together at the shins. It’s like playing sack race where if you fall, you’re going down in shit. Fear Factor India, bitches!

Also, if that wasn’t enough, there’s a little catch. You can’t really squat with your soles touching the ground completely. You’re supposed to be on your toes so that your centre of gravity doesn’t shift beyond your rectum and result in you falling with your butt first into the pot right on top of the warm, creamy you-know-what.

Moving on, if you’ve been successful in the first level, having applied enough pressure that your face went red sandwiched between your two pyramidal knees, but not so much that you, god forbid, fall into the IIPM, it’s time for level two: the washing time.

The inventory available with you during this process is a tap which runs perpetually no matter how much you twist and turn its top. Thus, explaining the wet floor. And, either no mug to collect the water in or a whole bucket that frikkin’ overflows with twenty litres of H2O. Muhuhahaha much?

If there’s no mug to collect the water, you can only imagine what you’re going to do. And if there’s a huge bucket full of water that you are unable to move in the squatty position because of one, its weight and two, because its rim is jammed under the tap which has been fixed on the wall too low; I’m sorry, but you cannot even begin to imagine what you’re going to do.

For the braveheart who fights through all of the obstacles and emerges a winner, I don’t think the absence of a bar of soap would be much botheration.

Let’s just say that I’m glad I don’t have an IIPM installed at my place. Among other things, I would hate to have Hussain Kuwajerwala barge into my house on a Sunday morning with a stupid Harpic cap, dying to run his fingers over my Indian toilet to see if it squeaks.

Image Source: phantomnetwork.com