FLUSHED

I travelled from the capital back to my home a few days back. The forbidding cost and the vagaries of weather makes air travel fraught with uncertainties in this sector and therefore the safest bet is the Volvo, two by two AC sleeper coach. It’s pretty comfortable too and therefore I always travel by it whenever I need to visit the Capital.
The HIMSUTA is an overnight bus and stops somewhere beyond Panipat for the dinner break. This place is kind of a motel cum Food Court, though I never eat anything there for the prices are beyond unreasonable. But I do use the washroom, for these are reasonably neat. This time too I headed for the ladies’ room to freshen up. The restroom is tucked in one corner but is pretty spacious with large mirrors, clean washbasins with running water and almost spotless toilets. As I walked in, I noticed a woman sitting on the floor within the washroom premise along with a young girl who looked to be her daughter. I assumed she was the washroom attendant and I was correct.

I used the cubicle just opposite to where she was sitting and when I emerged, she called out: “Didi Didi…..paani chalaya….?”
I was headed for the washbasins and though I heard her, I didn’t think she was addressing me. As I freshened my face, she called out again, “ O Didi…!

This time I looked at her and gesticulated, “Kya?”
She asked “Paani chalaya?”
At first, I couldn’t believe my ears: Was she really asking me whether I had flushed?????????????
I repeated, “Kya?” This time my voice was a tone higher.
She asked, “Paani chalaaya Didi?”
I felt the indignation, the offended gall rise up my throat and pound in my ears: What the hell!
I answered her icily, “Haan chala diya!”
She muttered “Accha.” But she was not satisfied. She asked her daughter, pointing to the cubicle I had just left: “Ja dekh kar aa.”
I washed my face, patted it dry, powdered and painted it into shape as if nothing had happened, but I was not done with her.
‘How the hell did this two-bit safaiwali ask me whether I had flushed or not?’ Went the voice in my head. ‘Me, Doctor Saab, Colonel Saab and what not, me the impeccable pillar of society?’
I walked past her, the affront thudding in my temples. As I crossed her, I spat out through clenched teeth, “Tassaali ho gayee?” The little girl looked frightened by the unprecedented viciousness in my voice while the mother only gave me a resigned look as I stamped out, fuming with indignation.
My sister had packed a lovely dinner for me but its pleasure was kind of lost to me. As the bus began moving through the dark of the night, I pondered over what had just happened. That safaiwali attendant was not to blame, not in the least. And my hoity toity high horse indignation was totally uncalled for and completely wrong. Think about it: How many countries there are on this planet that needed to employ someone at restrooms solely to remind women using it to flush?
We, Indian women, educated, well read, sophisticated; we with our designer clothes and designer handbags filled with expensive perfumed wipes and handwashes and sanitary sprays, we who scrunched up our noses with disdain at the mention of public restrooms, calling them dirty and stinking, we did not flush after using public toilets.
Why? Because it was not our home and vaise kya phark padta hai? Yeh to vaise hi gande rehte hain and ise saaf rakhna hamara kaam thodi hai…
And that woman sitting on the floor of the washroom, who watched thousands like us walk in and walk out, every day, strutting on our stilettoes, she knew our dirty stinking little secret………We Indian women did not flush…….



PS: Of course I had flushed!!!!