Shreya Sen-Handley | The King’s plumbing and other toilet tales

It was spare yet classically elegant, from the pristine black and white tiles on the floor to the twirly silver taps, chain flush, mahogany toilet seat and corner pedestal. But it was what was on the corner pedestal that stopped me in my tracks! A man’s head, not a real one, luckily, or on a spike, beloved of kings of yore, but a stone bust of a bearded man gazing intently at me. I wasn’t sure I could ascend the ‘throne’ under such intense scrutiny so I draped my dupatta over his face before I got on with it, sparing him his blushes as well. As I was washing my hands with nicely scented-soap, there was a sharp rap on the door and a British colleague breathed with some urgency, “You’re in The King’s loo!”

You might be asking yourself why I was in King Charles’ residence in the first place? Last month, my schoolgirl daughter and I were invited by Queen Camilla to meet her, in recognition of our work in encouraging literacy in Britain. My third book Handle With Care was also selected from Britain-wide nominations and presented to The Queen at the National Literacy Trust’s celebration. The next day, my name and that of my book was all over the British newspapers. All of which was very gratifying, but as a teller of quirky tales that reveal something about the human psyche, my stumbling into The King’s loo was the trip’s highlight!

Did the washroom reveal something unexpected about The King? Polished and elegant as I imagine he must be, it probably said more about his staff’s fastidiousness than the royals themselves. Could the bearded grandee’s bust have been a personal touch? Like the bust of Karl Marx displayed on the telephone table by my freedom-fighting granddad, his only contribution to their home’s décor? The beady-eyed royal bust I encountered wasn’t, of course, of Karl Marx (despite Charles’ liberal instincts, how funny would that be? And what fits of apoplexy would it cause the conservative chunks of the British public, out rioting against immigrants and their own police earlier this month?). Ultimately, the soul I glimpsed, in my surreal foray into the royal bathroom, was not The King’s, but stuck-in-the-past Britain’s!

To be fair to the loo, and even the royal residence in question, it was understated in comparison to the ostentatious mansions and over-the-top lifestyles of today’s super-rich. Think Donald Trump’s bling-bathed estates, and closer to home, the Ambani’s wildly outsized nuptials. The latter’s many excesses have been detailed by a gushing press and censorious critics too, so, I won’t repeat them, but what does it say about the 21^st century Indian?

There was an innate sophistication about our thousands-of-years-old culture that seems to have worn away in the pursuit of wealth. Who doesn’t want a good life, but there’s so much more to it than the accumulation of money. Have we lost sight of this truth we once held close? Worse still is the corrosive aggression we appear to have embraced, modelling ourselves on the Ugly American. It’s wonderful that we’re more assertive in the new millennium, because a little oomph is undoubtedly needed to overcome the many challenges we face, but are we overdoing the decibels? Who are we deafening but ourselves?

I can dismiss sniping from the western press for the sour grapes it is, but a great many dyed-in-the-cotton Indians themselves are critical of this emerging everyone-for-themselves zeitgeist. Characterised as a shucking off of the colonial yoke, it’s sometimes an excuse for a grasping incivility. You could argue we’re mirroring our mistreatment by the world, giving as g…rude as we get, but when they ‘go low’, shouldn’t we ‘go high’? Or, indeed, this, from a homegrown hero (still a hero to many, fortunately) – be the change you want to see. We need only look back at our past to see that we don’t have to stoop to their level to succeed.

But I digress – we were inspecting bathrooms and concomitant personalities! My gatecrashing of The King’s loo made me wonder how yours and mine would be perceived. What would guests at our dinner parties deduce about us from our washrooms?

Remember that party game where you’re asked to pick dinner guests from anyone in the world, alive or dead? What would, I asked myself, Jane Austen, Frida Kahlo, Barack Obama and Satyajit Ray make of my little downstairs loo? Would Ray approve of the large Art Deco Kolkata poster adorning its wall? Would Obama find the diminutive sink too small for his manly hands (Trump’s grubby paws would fit right in, but who’s inviting him)? Would my choice of a vividly orange hand towel gladden Frida’s heart? And that giant vat of antiseptic handwash, would Austen recognise our kindred spirits through that?

Perhaps. What I think it does say about me, is that I’m an arty, astringent, petite Indian, as so many of us are; passionate about my birth country no matter how far. Now please play along wherever you are, scrutinizing your own homes, particularly bathrooms, that part of you you least like to expose, for clues to your innermost souls!