Of Toilets and Relativity

I hate religious ceremonies. Especially Hindu ones.

Those of you who’ve read my previous post on “the functions” doubtless understand, or at least know of, my stand on them. So it should come as no surprise that upon being informed that my house, my bastion, my base of operations, was going to be the site of a ritual of said type, I was pretty freaked out and scared. Freaked out because my very own sanctuary was about to be violated, and scared because, well, this wasn’t just going to be another one of those local ceremonies - oh no, the relatives were coming in.

The relatives.

A lot of you are probably wondering why this had me bugging out, so I’ll explain. When I say “the relatives”, i don’t just mean a few aunts and uncles, I mean something more along the lines of aunts, uncles, cousins, INCLUDING the most god-awfully distant ones. Not that I have anything against them, really, it’s more that me and most of the rest of my family exist along different planes of existence. Not higher or lower, better or worse, just really, really, REALLY different. This means, of course, that I end up spending ever-greater amounts of time in holed out in my room, hoping to escape this storm relatively unscathed(pun unintended). I mean, I’ve got nothing to talk about with them; no one’s fault, it’s just a fact.

The guest bedroom and mine share a common bathroom, which would explain the next bit.

One of the scarier parts is that most of the lot, through no fault of their own, of course, don’t seem to be have quite grasped the concept of the standard western-style toilet(update 7/5/07: this link doesn't seem to work anymore. sure you know what i'm talking about, though.) or it’s usage (they’re used to the standard indian), or aren’t quite comfortable (again, I can’t really blame them) with the idea of toilet paper. What this means is that my toilet seat is perpetually covered with water and dirty footprints, which are a hassle to clean and make it more than a little uncomfy to sit down on when the call must be answered. Also, all the toilet paper I’ve set out for those who wish to use it gets drenched by the, ah, water used for, um, washing, so I can’t really go until it’s dry. An aside, anyone who wants to restart the “wash or wipe” conversation, well, don’t. I’ve had my fill of it. Also, I occasionally end up losing my room for a few days so that the guests can use it. It wouldn’t be a problem normally, it’s simply that my mom “cleans” up my room, which, of course, upsets the delicate and precise arrangements of a teenagers living space. That, and my bed is always made. It’s just not right…

Of late, I’ve often wondered if Einstein was a whole hell of a lot smarter than we give him credit for. Consider, if you will, the impact of his theory of relativity on, well, relatives. After long hours of research (alright, a few seconds of eating cookies), I’ve managed to come up with a slightly modified version of his stuff, complete with some pseudo-equations. “There is no such thing as absolute boredom and frustration. The degree of boredom and frustration you face is relative to how many relatives you have over, how much other stuff you can’t do because of it, and how strong the social obligation that prevents you from doing said stuff is’.” That is,

e = µN^2,

where e = boredom and frustration in terms of energy(joules), N = number of relatives, and µ = amount of stuff (i.e., number of items) you want to but can’t do because of it into strength of social obligation (on a scale of 1-10).

Yes, I just pulled all of that out of my ass. But it does make an eerie kind of sense to me. Even if the only thing I want to do but can’t do is sleep all day.

But all this makes it harder to go down for meals. Which, sadly enough, are still a necessity. It’s not that their company is so unbearable, it’s just that questions I’d rather not answer are asked. And the sight of a guy eating cereal for breakfast instead of a dosa or idlis raises even more “pointed” questions about nutrition and my “american ways”, long-winded dissertations on doing as the Romans do while in Rome, and so on and so forth. I guess they’re just traditional, and I wouldn’t mind so long as I didn’t have to recieve lectures about it. To be honest though, the number of lectures I get has come down a lot now, but I used to get a lot back when I first came here. Oh, and before I forget, the standard-issue hassle I get with guests is present as well - my bathroom is always steamed up and out of hot water by the time I wake up.

An anonymous bachelor pad is starting to look ever more enticing…