- Balram and Shekhar will clean toilets.- Icon (Quotes 1:16)
- 98% of constipation patients don’t give a shit.- The Spoon Guy (Quotes 1:45)
- um i prefer the privacy of my own bathroom- dks916 (Quotes 9:12)
- no, I didn’t say “Too The Loo”- kMac (Quotes 11:15)
- Ishaanji was pissing away to all glory- kMac (Quotes 13:19)
- I was but a wee lass of 5 (I mean ‘wee’ literally, I trickled everywhere)- novocaine (Quotes 13:33)
If you’ve been reading recent Fillets, you would know that my house is going to be reconstructed- broken down and rebuilt with new floor plans, new rooms, and new functionality. It’s a very expensive equivalent of an almost total code rewrite.
Yesterday, I accompanied my mother to Greater Kailash-II’s M-block market to inspect bathroom fittings. It was a pleasant and instructive experience.
Bathrooms are arguably the most important rooms a house can have. You start the day there and end the day there. This is not to detract from the importance of the kitchen, but let us face it- bathrooms are of prime importance. You cleanse yourself there- insides and outsides. Your own insides and outsides, that is, not the bathrooms. Cleansing yourself outside a bathroom, while adventurous, is something I would not really recommend.
The bathroom sees you through sickness- especially diarrhoea- and health. It’s where I do most of my reading, and thus enrich myself with noble thoughts. To unburden yourself of what you ate the previous evening, while at the same time unburdening yourself of your worries by reading Saki is heaven itself. As for showers- I have already discussed in great detail how delightful they are in W-Fillet #13.
To see the finest bathroom tiles and accessories on display yesterday, then, was pure joy.
One of the remarkable innovations I saw yesterday was a glass basin, something I would think twice about having in a bathroom. It looks beautiful- an exquisite example of craftsmanship that lets light play over and through it- but once it’s in the bathroom, you’re going to be looking at your pipes through it. No, it’s good old porcelain for my bathroom. And considering the glass basins start at nine kilorupees, that’s pretty much a final decision.
On the other hand, if I manage to get into IIM and bring home fat pay packets every month, I wouldn’t mind keeping it in my bedroom for ornamental purposes.
Moving right along, to bathroom tiles.
Flooring is a major hassle these days. My bua is inistent on marble, so the entire ground floor is going to be done in marble- at 300 rupees a square foot. But what the heck, you might as well spend on the place where you’re going to stay.
My mum, though, hates marble. She’s comfortable with tiles, but what she really wants is wood or Italian Pergo tiles that resemble wood. However, after doing an entire floor in marble, there might not be that much money to do more than one room in wood. So, the first floor will probably be either cheaper marble- onyx, or regular tile. However, until that’s decided it won’t be possible to finalise on bathroom tiles for flooring or for walls. Such is life.
Tentatively, though, there are these options- white and green onyx, or aqua tiles. I wouldn’t mind lemon tiles, though. They look quite pleasant.
If it’s aqua tiles in the long run, I’d like to have a single bright sunflower yellow tile next to the mirror. Looking at a nice sunny tile first thing in the morning while you’re brushing is the sort of thing that kickstarts your day. If it’s marble instead of tile, I could paint the door yellow. This’ll be worked out as we progress through the reconstruction. But there’ll definitely be a splash of yellow. Or even shocking pink.
What comes next? Oh yes, commodes.
Twin flush commodes have finally made their way to India. You know- the sort that have two flush settings- water saving for normal circumstances, and extra-power for when you’ve had Chinese food the night before. There was also a Japanese model on display- it had two rotary knobs to control bidet flow for, well, washing your bum. It came with instructions, too- ‘If the washing is not successful, please adjust sitting position for optimal wash’. Ahem. I think I’ll stick with a plain model, possibly with twin flush.
There’s a particular brand of commode whose name I’ve forgotten- American Standard, perhaps- that comes with a lifetime warranty. The salesman claims that there are houses in Jor Bagh where these commodes have been in continuous service for more than forty years- an uptime record that even Linux servers would be hard pressed to match. The idea of a commode that outlives you is certainly an appealing one- a story could be spun out of it- the commode that saw four generations and the stories it could tell.
I should stop now, but I won’t.
Showers- I wouldn’t mind an enclosed shower. It’s a lot more pleasing than just letting the water splash all over the bathroom- something that violates the object oriented concept of containership. If water is meant for the shower, it should fall within the shower tray- not on the floor or the slab. And besides, with an enclosed shower, you’ll get a more concentrated and joyous bathing experience.
There was this delightful model available for 225 kilorupees. Twelve strategically located shower heads for a full body shower, a seat, a foot massager, and inbuilt CD/ FM Radio Audio. Wow. Another object of desire to push on to the things-to-buy-when-I’m-filthy-rich stack. For now, though, a simple square shower tray, and if I’m lucky, an enclosure to go with it.
And now, since I’ve exhausted the topic, I will stop.