TOILET PAPER

Toilet paper hasn’t made it to India yet! And that took me by surprise!

In the loo of the room where I first stayed in India there was soap, toothpaste, and, of course, hair coconut oil, but no toilet paper! I thought, ‘They must have forgotten it!’ But no, that was not the case! In India they don’t use it. Don’t ask me what they do. I haven’t got the slightest idea and I preferred not to ask! I assume it’s better that way considering there are more than 1,200 million Indians. Imagine how many trees would have to be cut down to supply all those dirty tooshies!

I didn’t care what they did. My concern was to get it for me! I had some tissues with me, but not enough for a whole year! So I ventured to find some. But it was not so easy. In Vijayawada (with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants) I tried several shops, but they had no idea of what that was! Finally, after a lot of asking I found a hypermarket where they had some rolls. They also had sanitary pads (which are also quite rare). So I bought all the rolls they had (4) and a packet of sanitary pads. When it was my turn to pay, they asked me my name and my phone number. Don’t ask me why! I didn’t, either!

In the boarding school where I lived it was only my friend and I the ones who used it. We left the rolls in the corridor so that either of us could catch one whenever we needed. Other things could be stolen, but not that. On one occasion some of the kids saw the rolls and asked me what they were for. They’d never seen such a thing!

Getting toilet paper was an Odyssey! There wasn’t any in the place where we were living. So every time my friend or I went away (he used to go to Hyderabad once every two months and I travelled around India 7 times but not always to big cities) we bought all the TP we could find. When he returned he sometimes brought me olive oil, or ham, or a T-shirt, and that was OK (I mean, very kind of him). But when he came with the rolls, it was the best gift he could give me; it was a relief! We had some stock for the following weeks!

The thing is that when something is scarce, you value it more and, of course, you don’t waste it. I guess that you, the same as me before that experience, have never tried to save toilet paper. But I did every time I used it and I still do it now. I guess it’s a sequel of my life in India. The environment will thank me!

In the snap you can see how happy I was with my rolls! As many as 6! You see, sometimes you don’t need much to be up!

I don't know if it is accurate, but have a look at this video to get the picture of how they do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ