God! What has happened to me? Six months of stay in Mumbai as a journalist and I cannot go to the bathroom anymore!
OK, before you dirty minds start thinking what clever yet nasty comment you will write, let me clarify quickly.
Almost everyday I have to go to this five star hotel or the other to attend press conferences (the names of the foods their sound like poetry). Once I did the mistake of asking a liftman where the ‘bathroom’ is. He gave me a surprised look and rectified my mistake, “you mean the washroom?”
“Yeah, indeed. I am sorry,” I had to apologise.
Now invariably when I have the urge to release some extra liquid out of my body, I go to the ‘washroom’.
My dear ‘bathroom’ is now dead in my life. Probably it will never come back again unless I go back to my home in Calcutta where ‘washroom’ is where the well is (to wash your feet and hands) and bathroom is where you actually do things …
But in Mumbai, there are only washrooms or the most illusive 'restroom' (heck! the first time I heard this word, I thought people go there and sleep). May be I have become civilised or the whole world has become brown sahibs. Only Mumbadevi knows!
Please allow me to stop here, washroom beckons …
3 comments:
The liftman was out of order. He deserved no apology. He thought he was being very American, or European. Over here you could ask for anything at all: "Where's the little boys' room?" Some guests would just say, "Where's the---?" just pausing unsure. We don't have liftmen here but any trained hotel employee in England would put you at ease and say "Oh, the Gentlemen's Cloakroom, sir?" or whatever they called it in that hotel.
good to know that u neither 'wash' nor feel 'rested' after these trips.
Ha ha ha ha. Boss, that's life. Move on. Dikhave pe mat jao, apni akal lagao.
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