Every time I return from a trip abroad, the one thing I’m glad to return to is the health faucet, even if I’ve never really figured out why it is called that. We are unafraid to announce other parts of the anatomy. Without a care, we say “eye shadow,” “ear buds,” “nose ring,” “tongue piercing,” “mouth rinse,” “arm band,” “chest compress,” “toe socks,” “thigh-high boots,” even “navel lint.” I mean, I don’t want to be near anyone who can casually bring up “navel lint” in a conversation, but the point is that the term exists and it’s technically okay to be used in civilised discourse, as much as discourse around navel lint can be civilised. But then, suddenly… “health faucet,” suggesting a spigot on a cask filled with Ayurvedic goodness. Open the faucet, and you get… health.
A similar kind of squeamishness exists with where we use the health faucet. “Bathroom,” we say. Or “rest room.” The first time I heard the latter term, I thought it was some kind of heaven filled with hammocks and music systems playing Gregorian chants at low volumes, as waiters tiptoed around with trays of piña coladas. And then I found out. Why “rest room”? We don’t rest in that room, do we? We scurry in, scurry out. That’s the opposite of “rest.” Maybe we linger long enough to take a crack at the crossword. Ten minutes tops. Even then, hardly “rest” – unless we’re talking some extreme form of power-napping.
Picture courtesy: http://www.thailandclimbing.com/
I suppose these euphemisms exist because we can’t call the health faucet, say, a “bum hose” – though, personally, I don’t see why it’s okay to say things like “bum deal” and “bum rap” (no, that’s not a slap on your bottom, you pervert) amidst company and not okay to use “bum” to refer to a part of the anatomy, a very comfortable and useful part, if I may add. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m coming off, at this point, like Hermione from the Harry Potter books, who was so outraged by the treatment meted out to house elves – the, um, bottom feeders of the magic world – that she started the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (SPEW). But don’t worry. I am not about to start, say, a Society for Honouring Intestinal Travails (I’m not spelling out the acronym in this family newspaper).
Still, it’s something when even doctors, who are among the least squeamish people ever (I mean, anyone who can look you in the eye and say things like “Take off your clothes and lie down” has, long ago, crossed the boundaries of squeamishness), prefer to say things like “stool sample,” as if they wanted an idea what the furniture they ordered would look like. Or else they say “faecal matter,” which sounds so grown-up and serious. It’s a faecal matter of grave importance. It’s some kind of discrimination, surely, when it’s perfectly legit to say “vomit” in public. No one beats around the bush. No one says “stomach sample.” If I cared enough, I’d be outraged. I’d be holding up placards. I’d gather crowds until the cops dispersed us using industrial-strength health faucets.
Anyway, whatever we call it, I’m just glad the health faucet exists. I’ve gotten into sticky situations without one. There was this time I checked into a hotel, and the sink in the “rest room” had two glasses – so you could drink water from the tap. You just need one glass for that, so I set the other one in a corner. In the absence of a health faucet, you just improvise. The system worked fine for a couple of days, until an overeager cleaning lady replaced the glass in its original place. Now which was which? I kept looking in dismay at the two glasses, hoping for a sign. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a bum deal.
The Witch
May 1, 2015
Euphemisms are weird! While it is okay to use the term as it is in the metaphorical sense – like the ‘f’ term in various contexts, phrases like bored to death, getting oneself into shit, etc. these words have to be replaced with their (rather arbitrary) euphemistic equivalents (like making out, passing away and morning business) in their actual literal context. And it’s a good thing that the word ‘faucet’ hasn’t been tampered with. I guess, health sprinkler would sound more awkward than ‘health faucet’…
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sanjana
May 1, 2015
Rest room.Haha! Nice one.
Carry a colored glass which can fit into your pocket and for ladies its more convenient as they carry handbags which can even fit a small mug.
Toilet humour!
Difference between west and east. Or west and India.
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 1, 2015
Hilarious! BR is in his element when he gets positively anal about the things he cares deeply about… My kids used to say the ‘s’ word when they needed to hit the ‘restroom’ till the time I got reprimanded for teaching them ‘dirty’ language. So I caved and taught them to say ‘poop’ instead.
Moral of the story is that the time has come for us to be outraged, whip ourselves into a frenzy, hold placards and shout slogans till we are dispersed with industrial size health faucets for being a giant pain in the whatchamacallit!
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aparna
May 1, 2015
Delightful read, absolutely loved it.
Going off at a tangent but wasnt it a shame they left out SPEW in the movies, it so defined her character in the books
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topgunalways
May 1, 2015
Thoroughly enjoyed this humour-loaded piece.. had a smile throughout.. thank you.
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Govardhanen Gopal
May 1, 2015
@brangan A fantastic column! After living in the west for 20+ years now, the need to use paper is still unsettling. Bidet’s rule. Just a few days ago, one of the New York Times Tech columnists had a column on bidets. The japanese govenment tracks a countries sense of prosperity by the proliferation of bidets 🙂
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Anon
May 1, 2015
Haha!
And I thought I was the only one guilty of secretly stashing glasses for ‘other purposes’ during my trips abroad. Glad to know I am in elite company 🙂
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olemisstarana
May 1, 2015
Erm, eh….. bidet?
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aandthirtyeights
May 1, 2015
http://www.samosapedia.com/e/health_faucet. Here. Take.
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Santa
May 1, 2015
“...waiters tiptoed around with trays of piña coladas”
Waiters in heaven? I wonder what karma led to them to ending up in heaven… as a waiter. Truly, one man’s heaven is another man’s hell.
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Ram Murali
May 1, 2015
BR, that was hillarious! I know what song you were listening to as you typed this! “Ondraa…renda aasaigal!”
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Govardhanen Gopal
May 1, 2015
I have the cheaper USD $40-$50 bidets installed in all 3 bathrooms in my house, heck I sent a couple back to my family in India as the Indian bidet quality was a bit dodgy.
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cl
May 1, 2015
Love the title of this post. 🙂
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Iswarya
May 1, 2015
Watched a Japanese girl in Australia fill up a use-and-throw water bottle at the wash basin tap, scooping the water with her hands. Before I could jump to judging her, she walked into the ladies’ convenience with it!
Improvisation works at all levels, I suppose. Including the airplanes where there are teeny-weeny disposable paper cups!
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neena
May 1, 2015
Going abroad does bring out our anxieties about ‘bodily functions’ (squeam!), doesn’t it? Or is it a certain age when talking about them feels cool?!
The two glasses at the sink happens to me too. But, why are we squeamish about separating the two glasses? We only pour the water from the glass, no? 😇
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brangan
May 1, 2015
I thought bidet is the commode-like water-squirting thing you squatted on, not the hose-like thing that you grab with your hand and… you know.
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olemisstarana
May 2, 2015
Yes… I realized that while driving a few minutes after I typed out the comment and spoke out loud to myself, startling my co-passengers who weren’t very reassured when I tried to fill in context to my expostulation.
I enjoyed your post, BR, but next time can we go multi-media? You’ll have plenty of fodder ala this English uncle and his conversation with a Korean chamber pot.
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Karthik
May 2, 2015
The last anecdote was kinda em-bare-assing.
*embarrassing
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annoyed@Dumbdumphabits
May 2, 2015
Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. I absolutely HATE those who use, glass/cups/plastic containers in WESTERN type of toilet. There is water EVERYWHERE surrounding the toilet (which you would never imagine to cleanup yourself and leave it for hostess to do so) and sometimes poop sticking around the walls of toilet and on the floor due to splashing, especially old people who cannot see well. Talk about sticky situation with old desi guests from india or in-laws. One cannot tell them that water works well in Indian style, sitting on haunches because in those toilets one can aim (and/or use water to remove the lingering poop around the backtiles by using mug/bucket ususally present in the ‘rest’room etc) and it is a-ok to have wet tiles in those hole-in-floor toilets. Desis have the most disgusting toilet habits outside of their homes (without even going into poop under nails or all kinds of noises they produce from nose/throat to get rid of mucus and all)! Use toilet paper when using western style toilets and for gods sake shower afterwards if you are such clean freak like me or lower-half shower in winter time (after all how many times do you go number 2 in a day). That works for me.
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Govardhanen
May 2, 2015
@brangan it is a much cleaner/easier mechansim and does a spectacular job.
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RT
May 2, 2015
You should be taking this with you on your travels :
http://inventorspot.com/gotta_go
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aparna
May 2, 2015
Fun fact : The first toilet flushing seen on screen was in 1960. In Psycho.
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somari
May 2, 2015
“I’ve gotten into sticky situations”
can’t get that out of my mind now… Damn you brangan!
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ThouShaltNot
May 2, 2015
Evolutionary psychologists attribute it to “disgust” and it has roots in biological adaptation. Toxins in urine, feces and vomit make them universally disgusting. For the sake of argument, would you ever consider the thought of drinking hot soup from a newly minted bedpan?
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Girish
May 2, 2015
How about the steel tumbler attached with a chain in Train compartment toilets….I hardly eat during such travels to avoid using that thing. So far have managed it. Don’t know what future holds 😛
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Raj Balakrishnan
May 2, 2015
I found the bidets in Seoul to be awesome. They spray nice warm water. Also the potty seats were nice and warm.
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G Krishnan
May 2, 2015
And while we’re on this topic, how come we don’t say we have the runs? Instead we say ‘upset stomach’, so far removed from the cause of the problem in most cases.
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vijay
May 3, 2015
How about improvisations on the plane BR? In a hotel it is easier, but on a flight you have to be creative or else you could end up like Madhavan in Nala damayanthi. Reason why I hate long flights and congested airports
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prasun
May 4, 2015
What would the next hotel guest have done?
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Priya
May 4, 2015
LOL! Brangan saab! You took me right back to last May. My first trip to Europe. If handling yourself was bad enough, imagine having a fussy kid with you! One of the hotels we stayed in, had a separate toilet and a bathroom-a completely dry toilet at that! Horrors!
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sridharraman
May 4, 2015
Hilarious indeed, brangan! I was like that as well during my first overseas trip – I carried a take-away container from a Sagar restaurant through the trip as a replacement for a mug. 😛
But, I have made my peace with paper now. All that it took me was one Himalayan trek. With the freezing water and not wanting to get any part of your body wet, one feels eternally grateful that toilet paper exists! After that, through multiple treks and trips, paper it is.
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sachita
May 5, 2015
There is a dialogue in scrubs( tv series),
Janitor: Bidet
Zach bruff’s character: Bidet to you sir!
I have to off all the things in the world, look at what gets you out to protest and as a long term reader – I am not surprised.
Ps: Japanese have made sufficient advancements I hear that you would need a training manual to just use their restrooms…. err toilets. My dad still has a bit confused look on his face saying that word loud. Thanks for this, it cheered me out of a bad bad day.
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toilet_paper
May 5, 2015
I find this offensive!
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Rahini David
May 5, 2015
For my part, I have never understood why people say “Oh Shit” when they poor hot coffee over themselves. I mean everybody can see it and it clearly is hot coffee.
😀
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brangan
May 5, 2015
cl: Thanks 🙂 It was fun to get back to that zone again, now that my titles are more of a one-line summary.
Karthik: Embarrassing to… you? 🙂 It certainly wasn’t for me. I have no qualms accepting that I have bodily functions and am somewhat, um, anal about some of them 😀
Girish: So, a hypothetical question. The train is crossing a desert. The pantry car is all out of water. Your bottles are empty. The only available water is the one in the loo, with — as you put it — “the steel tumbler attached with a chain.” What would you do? 🙂
Raj Balakrishnan: Also the potty seats were nice and warm.
For some reason, I’m finding this very funny 🙂
prasun: What would the next hotel guest have done?
Have you heard of the saying, “One man’s finger bowl is the next man’s lime juice?” 😀
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J.Sriram
May 6, 2015
If keeping oneself clean after the visit is a desi thing, keeping the loo clean seems to be a western affliction. Video for your viewing pleasure. Not graphical and all.
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Jithu S
May 7, 2015
as you finish drinking from one glass, the other gets filled in, wasting little time in the rest room..if your hand eye coordination is of that of once upon a time sehwag, it closely mimics the health faucet. elementary for experienced drinkers.
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JK
May 7, 2015
Watching a lot of George Carlin eh?
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