When Nature Calls...

Yes, this post is about going to the bathroom. Why? Well, I have had a request for more photos of the inside of our house. So, you are getting photos of our bathrooms. Plus, this is proof for my former co-workers at ISU that Western style toilets do exist in India, and that I don't go in a hole in the ground! The main reason though is that unfortunately what I am about to write about going to the bathroom is what I deal with on a daily basis living in India. Since this blog is about my life in India, there are certain times when unfortunately the topic isn't going to be the most pleasant to discuss.

If you don't want to be grossed out, you may want to skip reading the next few paragraphs. Just skip ahead until you see photos. While living in Beijing, we would occasionally see men urinating along side the roads. Not very often...and when we did it was normally taxi drivers parked under the overpasses that were going. However, in the 9 months that I lived in China, I did on two different occasions see people going "number two." Yes, gross. Now here in India, seeing men urinating along side the roads is a way of life. It is not an occasional thing. Every time I leave my house, it is guaranteed that I will see this happening. Normally, I see this numerous times while I'm out. While I haven't actually ever counted how many men urinating I see in one day, I'm guessing the average is at least 5 to 10 per day. Haven't seen any of the other yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Anyway, men urinating in the streets...not a shock to me anymore...just the way of life here in India.

As far as public bathrooms go...in China, we based restaurants, shopping malls, etc on whether or not they had a Western style toilet. Most of the time we could find one...normally it would be the handicap toilet. However, I did use the squatters on many occasions. I figured when you have to go, you have to go. The thing that got me was the brand new, very nice shopping malls that had gross bathrooms. The really sad thing about this is that often times these bathrooms had full time attendants. Now, here in India, the public bathroom situation is not near as good as China. For one, there aren't near as many. I guess probably because there aren't the big buildings like Beijing had. Most of the stores are individual...and probably if I really went looking down alleys and back streets, I probably could find bathrooms. I'll pass though. Here in India, when you have to go, you hold it! Honestly, if I know I'm going to be out all day long, I plan my day to make sure that I stop at places where there is a decent bathroom...normally the big hotels. Besides at the airport, I haven't had to use a squatter here. Oh, I know they exist...just goes back to the fact that I'm not going to go unless I'm at home or in a hotel.

Also, I should probably mention for those of you who don't know, that the left hand in India is the one used for bathroom functions. Therefore, when dining or eating Indian food, one should only use their right hand to eat...no utensils are used.

So, what about the bathrooms in our house? We have 4 bathrooms...all with Western toilets. Being that there is only the two of us, we really only end up using two of the bathrooms...saves me from having to clean all of them all of the time.

This is a photo of the bathroom off of our master bedroom. S calls it the prison bathroom.

These photos are of the bathroom off of our office. It is actually the nicest bathroom and the one we use to shower. It's kind of hard to take decent photos of such a small area, but I'll try to explain what you are looking at. Right past the toilet, there is a drop (hard to tell in the photo because the tile is the same). This is so the water doesn't run all over the bathroom from the shower. Adjustable shower rods don't exist in India, so we don't have a shower curtain. At first this bothered me, but now we are just use to it. I actually have really grown to like this concept, and if ever we build a house, I would live to have this design in one of our bathrooms. The bathroom is L-shaped. So around the corner from the toilet (see second photo) is the sky light area. This is the area that was originally completely open to the outside before we made the landlord put plexi-glass over the opening, or we wouldn't take the house. I guess when it rained the water would have just run down the walls to the rocks (there is a drain in the rocks). You can see the framing that divides the rocks from the shower to once again keep the water in the shower area.

So, there you have it. A post on bathrooms. I'll try to come up with something a little bit better for my next post.