An NRI Indian wife who lived in the USA for many years was shocked to see that in India people are wasting so much water for washing kitchen utensils dishes etc. In America the dishwashers do the job using much less water. What a waste of water she crowed! Just think of the amount of water that could be saved if all the households used dishwashers! Probably there would never be any shortage of water even if the monsoons failed. What a thoughtless nation! I thought, add to this the wastage of water from washing clothes the old way! Washing machines certainly saves water! Think of the water that the Indians would save if they chose to use the toilet paper instead of washing the body parts! Till not long ago, in the west (particularly UK) same bathwater was used over and over by a number of people, which saved a lot of water and heat too!
But all these practices are unthinkable for the Indian. For the Indian, the food and cooking methods are such that dishwashers are of no use. Most Indian housewives take pride in the superb shine of their utensils. Lot of scrubbing and water goes in to the process. Washing machines are catching up in urban areas where housemaids are difficult to come by or too expensive! Most Indians soak their clothes in soap water, beat them thoroughly, squeeze, rinse, squeeze and starch before drying the clothes in sunlight. But with the usage of synthetic fabrics the process has undergone some change.
Toilet paper? No. One may wipe and wipe till the skin peels off but without washing, that yucky feeling will never go away. No amount of wiping will do any good! And think of the yellow-brown stains on under wares and sheets!! Some one should calculate the number of trees that would be saved if the wipers the world over stopped using toilet paper. Probably thousands of hectares of forests would be saved! But who cares. The wipers feel yucky to even think where all the hand of the washer goes for the washing job! Not to worry, a hand is reserved for that purpose!!
Bath is a ritual for the Indian. For most Keralites it is a twice-daily ritual. Bath in a temple pond is considered a purifying procedure though the water in the pond may look yucky and green! But no reusing of bathwater over and over in a bathtub! The green colour of water in the pond is due to the reflection of the greenery of the surroundings, water plants, algae etc. The water plants algae etc are useful for keeping the water clean as also fish and other water animals, which live in, and around the ponds.
Before modernity caught up with Malayalees, oil massage on body and head every morning was common practice for both men and women. Women and men would scrub their bodies with a special scrubber called “eenja” made from the fibres of the bark of a plant and the women would wash their hair with a home made shampoo called “thali” prepared from a mixture of some plant leaves. The sight of a young woman coming out of the bath exuding exotic fragrance and clad in nothing but wet towel called "Thorthu mundu" has fired the imagination of many a poet and writer!! These practices have now given way to more convenient and simple shower bath.
The boom in land prices has encouraged many Indians to dispose off their family land holdings and invest in more profitable ventures and also acquire modern luxuries of life. A friend belonging to North India was telling me how his grand father would not allow a piece of land in his village, measuring about an acre or so, to be sold because he wanted the plot to be retained for his morning ablutions!! He was used to defecating in the open fields all his life and did not want to change this practice in his old age. He feared he would die a painful death due to constipation!! The caress of cool morning breeze on the bottom is too precious an experience to be given up for the mordern Potty!
