Can we all please go to the toilet?

“Where is the restroom?” asked someone during my visit to IIMB in early 2007. That may have been my first encounter of “restroom” usage in the Indian English vernacular. While I honestly am not a sexuality-ist, my instant reaction had been, “Gay.” What I meant by it was, “Lame.”

That day, I heard several people jumping on the restroom usage reminding me of the “Chamberlain” episode in Seinfeld. That gem of a scene would’ve played like this.

George: Where is the restroom?
Jerry: What do you need a restroom for?
George: Restroom is now the number one destination in metropolitan India.
Jerry: You know why? Because people like to say “restroom.” “Excuse me, do you know where the restroom is?” “I need to go to the restroom.” “Where is the restroom? No restroom?”
George: You know it must be impossible for an Indian metropolitan to go to the toilet without asking for the restroom.

The thing is, neither are restrooms yet common nor are the people looking for a place to powder their noses. I don’t understand why “toilet” and “bathroom” suddenly lost their serviceability.

“Teacher, may I go to toilet?” “Teacher. Bathroom,” were such wonderful excuses that I learnt in school, and I had been of the belief that they would serve me for the rest of my life. One of the reasons why they lost their sheen might be that groups with both men and women in them have become more common. They are conscious to mention a nature call in the presence of a representative of the opposite sex. But why? Sure, it is understandable when people don’t want to excuse themselves for a moment citing a bowel movement, but in the days when the whole gamut of four-letter words are accepted among public conversations of grown-up groups, I don’t see why “toilet” should make me self-conscious. Neither calling toilet a restroom nor sugarcoating it are going to change its odour.

Once again, having corrected myself, “restroom” sounds “lame”. I pray to the Lord to bless me with enough strength to carry on the tradition of toilet usage along public coversations.