When the pandemic first cast its shadow over the world, a peculiar madness gripped the West. Millions of Westerners frantically bought toilet rolls. For all of us from the East, the scramble for tissue paper and the sight of their empty shelves in supermarkets was baffling. We simply could not comprehend the urgency to stack paper rolls, but then, tissues are something Westerners cannot do without. Their loos are water-less. No rinsing, no washing, they must clean their bottoms with toilet paper after doing the business.
‘East is east and West is west’, said Kipling. Nowhere is this divide more apparent than in the sanctuary of the lavatory while practicing everyday personal hygiene. Whereas the West uses toilet paper, the East uses water; one wipes, the other washes. When it comes to ‘behind’, people in the East feel, quite smugly that the ‘most advanced’, countries are actually far behind us.
However, moral superiority puts you in an awkward situation when you land on Western soil. The ‘loo woes’ begin at the airport itself. You enter the toilet cubicle only to find a dry, desert-like landscape– no water, only tissue rolls. They say, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’, but when the Romans don’t provide a faucet, you are forced to smuggle bottles of mineral water in the cubicle.
The trouble doesn’t end at the terminal; it follows you home. I remember the first time we visited our son in Australia he was staying in a rented accommodation. The flat had a standard Western toilet with no bidet, water jet or hand held spray that we are accustomed to using for decades now in India. For us not just the traditional Brass lota (water vessel), but even the plastic mug has become a relic of a distant past. However in the absence of a faucet, we decided to make do with a mug. Then began a frantic search for a humble plastic mug, but a thing so ubiquitous in India was conspicuously absent in the West. Ultimately, we had to resort to some classic Indian jugaad: an improvised vessel created by decapitating a plastic soda bottle.
Keeping aside the personal preferences, there is a strong case for ‘wet’ way from environment angle. As it turns out, the ‘dry’ way is actually much wetter and dirtier for the planet. Water-loo is actually the greener choice using far less water as compared to gallons of water used in making tissue paper. Not only is the toilet paper industry a water guzzler, but also a forest-gobbler, sacrificing millions of trees for the wood pulp.
‘Old habits die hard.’ Whatever may be the arguments in favour of ‘wet’ way, the ‘wash-wipe’ divide is not likely be wiped out soon. So long as Western lavatories remain resolutely dry, water-less loos will remain a personal Waterloo for any visitor from the East.
(Published in The tribune on World Environment Day, June 5, 2026)
The dry methodology is not hygeinic as well. We constructed our house in North Carolina and first thing we mastered was how to install a Jet pressure without which the washroom is incomplete. I have now found the faucets often available at various international airports. Could be that the westerns have now realized that there is a better ways of doing things.
You are right Narinder . For we Indians, a toilet sans water is no toilet. When we visited our son i in Sydney for the first time , he was living in a rented accommodation with western style water-less loo . Now that he has his own house, there is no problem as the toilets are equipped with faucets.
An excellent piece on a daily chore of which the East-West divide is less talked about. I can second the practice of carrying a bottle into the airport or hotel toilet; I never felt embarrased about it as I was sure my practice is better both for personal hygiene and the environment. When my Canada based son purchased his house, my precondition to join him was a jet-spray in the toilet I would use.
Personal hygiene practices in Europe go back to old times when they didn’t have moderm heating technologies. Victorian literature is full of parables around weekly baths – which in their lexicon meant soaking in soap-laden wram water in a tub for an hour! Only the royals had a bidet besides their toilet. The liberal use of perfumes and powder in the West also goes back to that era. It wasn’t that Europe didn’t have water; there was ample. But it was ice-cold! Paper wasn’t.
The East, whether the tropics or the temperates, were more mindfull of personal hygiene, and the environment. Bath meant a shower under a stream or a pump. Tub bath meant you shower afterwards. Water as a cleansing agent was, and is, so ingrained in their practices (and rituals) that its uses were found early on. The neti we do in Yoga would asphyxiate an untrained Westener, for example.
Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful tutorial on understanding the cultural preference for toilet paper over water !Thank you so much Atul .
I am not so well read as you are but, when I reflected over the issue, I thought the same . Cold water in cold conditions must have been the reason for the use of tissue paper and now it’s a matter of habit, ingrained in their culture.
We won’t change our way. Hence our children in the developed world make sure that they have toilets fitted with jets in their own house . So not a problem now .