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Magazine
MUSINGS
The humble lotta
SADAF SIDDIQUE
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Living in the United States can be just like living in India. Except for some sorely-missed necessities.
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I loved the U.S. the minute I landed… I loved where we lived, I loved the view, loved everything. Till, that is, I got into the bathroom.
When people find out that I have been in the U.S. for just over a year, they proceed to ask a series of varyingly eager and intrusive questions. One that is sure to come up is what do you miss most about home? I am expected to look mournful and recal
l chuchu ka murabbas or the monsoons or my mother’s pallu or some such. But more often than not, I am tempted to tell them the truth. I miss bathroom mugs. There, I said it! And it’s true. Listen up future grad students and blushing brides, if you really, truly want to know what you need to pack into those 64-kg baggage allowance and get to the land of the free-and-lets-impose-it-elsewhere, here’s some advice. Unasked for and therefore free, but I know you will thank me. If fact, don’t thank me, pay me! You don’t have to go stock up on Fab India kurtas (ever washed a rani pink kurta with your whites? Well, don’t) or take jars of neembu ka acchar, what you need is just round the corner at your local kirne-ki-dukaan. Or, the way India is going, at your neighbourhood friendly local business-outing-brand-embracing mall.
I loved the U.S. the minute I landed (have you ever noticed how the U.S. is just one amorphous entity? No? Well, let’s keep it that way). It was a bright sunny day. I loved where we lived, I loved the view, loved everything. Till, that is, I got into the bathroom. It was clean, sanitised and lacking the essential component of every desi household. Before you begin to suspect my hygiene levels, let me assure you that I can handle any amount of paper work, thank you. However, after a while, it was obvious I needed to find the liniment of my life, my sanitiser, my steriliser — the humble lotta.
Not so easy
So I thought, no problem, the U.S., after all, is over run by desis. Ergo there will be desi stores. It’s just like living in India. Seriously. After days of only seeing Indians and Chinese, I asked out loud: where are all the white people? (In the mid-west apparently.)
I began my search in the desi stores, moved onto the Targets, Wal-Marts, Ikeas, Walgreen’s and Longs Drugs. I left no hardware store unturned, but to no avail. It seems that the bathroom mug is an unfamiliar species in these parts. Just try explaining what a bathroom mug is to spaced out store clerks. Sure there are variants. Most desis resort to using either watering cans or calibrated measuring cups as a substitute. Watering cans I can deal with but placing kitchen items in the bathroom and that too for non-culinary purposes is plain wrong.
So what do Americans have against using water? I have no idea. Despite having greeted and smiled and wished a great day to strangers, cashiers and the like, I have never gotten around to asking about missing mugs and toilet-paper dependence. But till my next trip home I guess I will have to make do with the plastic coffee mug that says iXL.
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