Potty Calling Kettle Black

Sometime around mid-April, when most of the snow had finally melted and a semblance of spring was visible here in Kitami, I witnessed a scene that is probably quite unique to small-town Japan. One evening, my sis-in-law and husband (otherwise known as cobra, which I shall explain later) came back from work and immediately grabbed couple of brooms and started cleaning up the footpath and the street in front of their house, making a neat pile of the swept-up dirt. The next morning, while walking around as part of my get-rid-of-the-flab exercise routine, I saw the same cleaning up being done or already done in front of most houses as well as business establishments. Small piles of the dirt as well as the gravelly sand (used to provide friction on snow (ice) covered roads) accumulated over the course of the long winter. The municipal guys later come and take these piles away. This is done voluntarily and I'm sure there are some dirt-bags who don't do it, but the majority does it, which is impressive. I haven't seen anything like this in Tokyo. When I think of it, this used to be practiced in Trivandrum too, where people (or the servants) used to sweep up the area in front of their houses. That is slowly disappearing for various reasons including an increase in the number of scumbags who like to throw their scum in front of other people's houses.
(Cobra: This term, in case you haven't heard, is the short form of co-brother. A co-brother is an Indian English word (I think so, but maybe it's just a Mallu term or even only a Trivandrum term) describing the relationship between guys married to sisters. So, my wife's sister's hubby is my cobra.)

Talking of scumbags, recently Mr. Velu, the Railway minister (under Lallu), insinuated that Mallus are scumbags. Well, kind of. The problem is that I don't remember where I read it and even though I Googled with different combinations, nothing turned up. I might have read it in one of the mallu newspapers. Here's what I remember. This apparently was in response to a question by an MP about the bad condition of the railway coaches in the trains running in Kerala, for which he answered that it was because Mallus don't have cleanliness or something like that (I'm frustrated at not being able to find that article and also at the MPs from Kerala for not rubbing Velu's nose in scum). From the name, I assume Velu is from our friendly neighbourhood State of TN. I feel that it's preposterous for an Indian to label another State as unclean considering the general hygiene practiced across the country. Especially coming from a person from TN, where the penetration rate of TV exceeds that of toilets (more than 65% of households in TN are without potties whereas 90% have TVs), it is ridiculous. It's like the pot calling the kettle black, or to be more precise, it's like the "potty" calling the kettle unclean.

And talking about potty, I have a few pictures for you. I have mentioned about the hi-tech toilets of Japan earlier also (interesting statistic in comparison with TN - by some estimates more than half of Japanese households have this kind of toilet). I saw a TV program where a few foreigners were asked about what's cool in Japan and the hi-tech toilet was one of the top answers. They showed some of the latest models that feature slots for memory sticks (like the one for digital cameras), which can be used to play your favourite music - brings to mind the "thaamasam enthe varuvan praanasakhi?" (or, "what's taking you so long dear?") toilet joke. The toilet bowl itself was lit up in blue, probably using blue LEDs. As usual, I was impressed, but a few days later the newspapers reported that some of these hi-tech toilets had malfunctioned and the company involved was recalling some of the products they sold. Hmm, I immediately checked the serial number of my potty, which fortunately was not on that list. Don't need any accidents around the family jewels, do you?

Shown below is the control panel of my new potty (I recently moved into a newly built house). It has a complex panel compared to the earlier one. In addition to the regular buttons for water pressure, warmth of the water and the seat, bidet

The control panel

more buttons inside

The potty! see the remote sensors??

for women and soft wash (the butt-picture button on the right), there are buttons for positioning the washlet and making it move back and forth while washing, timer for power saving and for power exhaust. And, it's all remote controlled. Even the flush is digital, which is a major difference from the model I had earlier. The two buttons at the top (between the black borders) is for flushing - one big and one small flush... and it flushes like the airline toilets...whoosh!!! split-second.. it's gone.
See the warning label on the toilet seat cover.? The third item says "the company does not take any responsibility for any accidents with the washlet similar to acts practiced by the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah"....Ha, ha.. Jokes apart, it's weird sitting on a toilet with so many warning signs on it. I wonder what the foreigners who don't know Japanese feel about it.