Western Ape

Hotels like The Park, Ista impress me a lot. For that matter any 4-5 star hotels in our country do. Courtesy IBM, I get to stay in a lot of these hotels. Infact if I were my friend or neighbour instead of being ME then probably I would have been envious. After a second thought, let go of "probably". But because I am ME and not my neighbour or friend, I feel pathetic! Why? Let me explain.
Imagine a grand 5-star hotel reception. You are in awe of the place as you enter, probably miss a step or two as well. A polite well-dressed receptionist with a plastic smile greets you with a "Namaskar" and you feel proud to be an Indian. You feel proud that your country has such magnificient monuments, oops, I mean hotels. And brimming with this sense of pride you follow your personal floor manager to your room. Ah the room is just made up of your dream...yes dream, more so, if you are born and brought up in a middle class family. You eagerly wait for the manager to leave you alone with your dream, and he does giving another plastic smile.

The scene so far is nice. But the misery comes when you enter the bathroom. Bathroom is again made up of dreams, and the only thing that you can do comfortably in there, is probably sleeping, and...dreaming. I mean what else? It has a marble flooring expensive bath tub where u can lie down, sleep and dream, but unfortunately it doesn't have a toilet with proper amenities so that you can wash yourself...again the kind of practise you have followed ever since your childhood!

Now if I am abroad I know I cant expect such a toilet because people there are not used to the same. But in my own country?!!! And that too after shelling out around 8k per night?! I mean why? I dread staying in a 5 star only because of this. I would not be jealous of myself if I were not ME only because of this.

My question to all these 5 star hotels...why being in India are you aping West? Why cant we have the right to "wash" ourselves after toilet like most Indians do? Why are we "forced" to use the "Toilet Papers" instead? I appreciate the fact that probably most of their business come from the foreigners who visit India, but can't they have both the facilities (if at all having toilet rolls can be termed a "facility") simultaneously? Why deprive us Indians our small n big habits for your foreign earnings?