Blog 10: “dirty work, literally and figuratively.”

I'm writing this blog immediately after my previous blog and as you might have put together by the writing style, I am not in the mood to tell elaborate stories. With that said, this blog is going to be more of a set of short statements and anecdotal stories that do not warrant an entire blog.

There is pretty much no public urination law in India. Guys will just hop off their motorcycles wherever they want and do their thing. It is not a drive to the plant without seeing at least five guys taking a whiz. It is so bad that some walls clearly have to state “NO URINATING” on them. Up until a few days ago, I had only seen men peeing... Well, that one fateful day, there she was, this Indian woman with her skirt hiked up and popping a squat right on the side of the road. Yep, there that was.

A few days after that, I thought I had seen it all. On the way home from the plant, we drive down this little access road along a toll road. The access road is dotted with quarries, farms, and really small huts put together by leaves, sticks, and mud for the most part. It's like the second little piggy was contracted to build the low income housing in India. I was just looking off into the distance, my mind a complete blank, when we pass a hut. As we pass, I see a little girl squatting and looking at the ground. I was curious what she possibly could be looking at and then I saw what you have probably guessed by now. There, right underneath the girl, was a small brown pile. Ewwwwwwww!

There are buses and public transportation everywhere here. So many people ride the buses that sometimes they fill to capacity. That does not deter a brave Indian though. You see, these buses have no windows and no closeable doors since it is so hot here. What they do have are horizontal bars in place of windows. I have literally seen four guys hanging out the door of a bus, holding onto the bars as the bus barrels down the road. There are two doors on a bus here, two in the passenger side near the front and back and it is not uncommon to see three or four guys at each door hanging out the side. It's insane.

I thought after the first couple paragraphs it might be a good idea to shy away from the bathroom but after talking about it and now buses, it brings me to another story. On the way home from the plant one day we passed a bus. I looked up at the people riding the bus and noticed a teenage girl looking absolutely miserable. She had a small string of drool hanging from her mouth that was rolling down the side of the bus. I was wondering to myself what was wrong with her; then I saw her mother begin to rub her head and her back and came to the conclusion that the girl had, or was going to, throw up. I kept my eye on the situation considering how stupid traffic is here because if this girl throws up, something is probably going to get thrown up on.

The bus, in a power move, cut us off so I could no longer directly monitor what was going on, but I kept my gaze in the general direction. A couple seconds after we stop, suddenly I see projectile vomit emerge from the side of the bus. It flies about seven or eight feet with respect to the horizontal and splashes on the concrete median. Since we had just stopped at a stop light, this meant people were going to try to jam in everywhere they could and I was one of the few people who had the knowledge of this girl with the projectile vomit powers. The bus had left just enough room for a couple motorcycles to squeeze in and squeeze in they did. They began rolling through the liquid on the ground and one by one stopped at the front of the bus and formed a line. As the line got longer and longer I began to estimate how many motorcyclists it would take to reach where the girl was sitting on the bus. Unfortunately, the line never grew back to where the girl was sitting and her projectile vomit turned into fairly tame vomit that just trickled off the side of the bus and made a pool near the back tire.

There is a concrete supply company here that has billboards. Their name is Vajram. I will leave it at that and let you think up where I am going with that.

Okay, back to the bathroom. The major toilet and sink manufacturer here is called Hindware. I have a Hindware toilet in my hotel bathroom. I have been trying to figure out if that is a smash up of the words “Hindi” and “Ware” or if it is literally meant to be ware for my hind.

Speaking of the toilet in my hotel room, there is a telephone next to it like they have in most fancy hotels. That is gross and I am upset that I accidentally touched it and talked on it when the front desk called up to ask how things were going. I had just opened a new bar of soap and I washed my hands with it until I could no longer see the Courtyard by Marriott logo stamped in it.

Also, the things you hear about the left hand in India (don't shake anyone's left hand), seem to be true. I have not come out and asked it, but I am going to put together an argument for the “never shake an Indian's left hand” theory.

Exhibit A) When we all eat lunch in the cafeteria, a lot of them do not use utensils even though there are forks and spoons available. It is very interesting watching people use their hands to eat rice, but it is how it is done here. They get the rice a bit moist so it sticks together, form a ball with it, then eat. All while this is happening, their left hand is sitting in their lap. Only the right arm is on the table. It is also interesting to watch them rip flat bread into pieces with one hand so that they can dunk it in the gravy/vegetables/spices mixture. They kind of have to pin it down with their third and fourth fingers curled in and then use their thumb and index finger to grab the flat bread and pull upwards. I just use both my hands, you know, because toilet paper and I are really good buddies.

Xzibit B) You've officially been pimped.

Exhibit C) There is no toilet paper in any bathrooms in the plant. I have been forced to smuggle a roll or two out of my hotel bathroom because of this. This seems fairly common as I have seen it in some public bathrooms too. Now, what is next to the toilet are three things: a bucket, a spray hose (sort of like the one typically seen at a kitchen sink), and a drain. The other thing I have always noticed is that this triad of bathroom accessories is always on the right side of the toilet. This is what I have concluded: you turn on the spray hose with your right hand and fill the bucket. You then use your left hand to do the dirty work, literally and figuratively.

Exhibit D) For some reason, about 75% of all Indian men have a single long fingernail on their left hand. Usually it is on the thumb or pinky finger and it is longer than your typical American woman's fingernail. I am still trying to figure out what it is for, but it is always on the left hand, and I do not know if I really want to figure out what it is used for.

I think I sufficiently presented enough evidence to prove my point, especially point B.

The other odd thing about the bathroom in the plant are the stalls. The usual stalls in America have a toilet, then the door has about an eight to twelve inch gap underneath it. Well, it's not like that here. There are full size doors so you feel like you are locked in a closet when going to the bathroom. What is REALLY odd though, is that of the four stalls, there is only one with a toilet that you and I would be familiar with. The other three? Well, they have porcelain structures in them, but they are simply bowls in the floors with a hole in the bottom. On the sides of the bowls, there are rippled areas that look like they are there to provide gripping for your feet. Most Indians grow up learning that the way to go number 2 is to squat. Interestingly, when I was doing some research into this, I found some websites that endorsed (and actually sold attachments for toilets to help those acquainted with toilets do this) the squatting method as better for your body. Apparently it straightens out your colon more where as sitting on a toilet causes a slight curve near the end that can trap some of the solid waste there. I will not take any legal responsibility if next time you go to the bathroom you try to squat on your seat and injure yourself in the process.

Let me preface this short story by saying that I actually quite enjoy eating at Subway. I know I will get called out because I like to call it Swootway (for those uninitiated, “swoot” is defined as the exact opposite of sweet by Covino & Rich on Sirius/XM Radio), but it is not that bad. The real reason I call it Swootway is simply because I think Quizno's is far superior. Plus, let's be honest, Subway's meatball subs are really good, but meatball subs by definition are really good. I was walking through a shopping center and saw a Subway and determined that it sounded really good to eat at. It wasn't, but I'll get there in another blog. What I will fill you in on now is the fact they were jamming some Akon all up in there over their speakers. Not only that, it was unedited and for those of you familiar with the non-radio-friendly version of “I Wanna Love You,” you'll know why I was a bit shocked. Since I try to keep this blog PG-13 or so, I am going to let you do the research there.

Lastly, there is a laundry service at my hotel where I can place my laundry in a bag, fill out a form, it magically disappears, and comes back clean when I get back from work. According the the rate sheet they give me, I can get my Safari Suit cleaned for 90 INR! That right there is a deal, now if only I had a Safari Suit...

That is enough for now. Let's close up the short stories book, tuck you in, and turn out the light. Nighty night!