Crossover Episode

Cleaning Toilets & Other First World Problems

This, it turns out, is Takeover Week. 

Today's edition of the newsletter has been written by Amrita. As her Substack bio will tell you, Amrita has a PhD but we should not hold that against her. A few weeks ago, she mooted the idea of doing a crossover issue - where we write an essay that is featured in the other person's newsletter. Amrita and I are fellow members of a fabulous collective (the Clear Writing Community) and have been reading - and applauding - each other's work for a while. So, of course, I agreed. We wrote our essays based on prompts we'd exchanged and, in our unbiased opinion, this has been an unqualified success. After all, Amrita is a brilliant writer who can write about ambition, Neuralink, and bangs with equal elan. You can - nay, you must - subscribe to her newsletter. (Click here.) 

But for now, please read her funny, thoughtful, and moving essay about life in the USA.

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Cleaning Toilets & Other First World Problems

If you’ve never cleaned a toilet before, try it. Extra points if you’re not the only user of the toilet. Pour the cleaning liquid into the toilet bowl, and ask yourself why the liquid is blue and who chose the word ‘bowl’. Scrub it with a brush and try not to go down existential rabbit holes (‘How do I clean the brush? Has anyone ever cleaned the container that holds the brush?’). If you’ve never done this activity before, chances are you will never experience it again, so soak it in. 

The first time I cleaned a toilet was when I moved to the United States at age 21. The internet taught me how to do it. It also taught me how to make palak paneer (sorry, mom). For the first time in my life, I had to provide all my own meals; somehow I started to enjoy eating the same thing three days in a row. I washed utensils, did laundry, mopped the floor, cleaned the fridge, bought groceries, and took out the garbage. My mom informed me that one is also supposed to clean the insides of the kitchen sink—this I happily ignored. 

Indian immigrants in the US and other developed countries have created a meme that helps us cope with this onslaught of errands. The meme starts by depicting the immigrant’s expectation of life here—this inevitably involves partying—then cuts to reality: the immigrant looking forlorn, confronting a dome of dirty dishes. When you move abroad, no one tells you how closely you are going to become acquainted with the merits of different brands of dish soap. 

Image source

I ‘hard relate’ to these memes but deep down, I know there’s something off-colour about them. Most Indian immigrants in the US are upper caste elites, part of a small fraction of the Indian population that can afford to pay someone to do all their cooking and cleaning (or they are men for whom there is always a mother, sister or wife to do everything). When we land in a developed country, these privileges evaporate at the airport. So the real lament is not about chores, but a change in status from hyper-elite to middle class. 

It is natural to rue a decrease in your wealth relative to the people around you. The cause of this decrease is that India is a poor country. Income inequality (the difference between the top 10% and the bottom 10%) is actually much higher in the United States than in India, but so is the average income, so the post-graduate degrees and formal sector jobs that make you hyper-elite in India don’t give you the same status in the US. More importantly, the number of people living in poverty is much, much lower in the US than in India. We Indians need to shift focus away from income inequality and strive to get as many people out of poverty as fast as possible.

I have to admit that housekeeping in the US is not the same thing as in India. To say that there is more dust in India is like saying that Vicky Kaushal is a better dancer than Abhishek Bachchan—true, but such a trifling understatement that you might as well not say anything.  

Naach tera, tauba tauba. Image source

I hate nothing more than washing dishes, but in the US dishwashers are ubiquitous. There’s never an electricity or water shortage, washing machines come with dryers, there are fewer ants… it’s a lot easier to keep a house. And in India, hiring a maid creates a job; they need the money and you can pay. So I’m not saying rich Indians should start doing all their chores themselves. Just that being responsible for my own housekeeping has helped me appreciate those who did the work for me back home.

I’ve lived in the US for eight years now, and don’t mind the toilet cleaning as much as I did when I was 21.  (I can hear my husband disagreeing vehemently, but he doesn’t know how much I loathed it in the beginning). I have gone so far as to create more chores for myself by buying ten houseplants, clothes that not only need ironing but gentle hand washing in cold water with mild detergent, and saying ‘Yes yes, please come’ to anyone who wants to stay over.

The funny thing is that like the meme kids disarmed by their dishes, I also pine for home, but for different reasons. A few years after the move, I noticed a pani puri-shaped hole in my heart that said things like ‘What if we moved back to India?’ and ‘Remember ceiling fans?’. Every now and then, it gets confused and thinks that it is in India—while reminiscing with college friends about cheap beer and dal chawal butter mix; when a DJ plays the opening notes of Mundian to Bach Ke; when a restaurant understands what ‘one by two’ means and that gobi manchurian should be spicy and crispy, not soggy and sweet. Yes, a lot of this is about food. 

And then out of nowhere, I’m watering my ten houseplants and the Monstera has produced a new leaf and I have to call my mom to share the news, but she’s asleep on the other side of the world. It’s all downhill from there. Ugly crying to Swades songs turns into googling India’s air pollution statistics, and before I know it I’m in the kitchen eating Maggi masala straight out of the packet. There are Reasons, I reprimand the hole. Good Reasons not to move back. At least not yet. 

Having brought my irrational emotions under control, I return to my laptop to do the important work that I came to the United States to do. Alas, I forgot to close Youtube before and Ye Jo Des Hai Tera begins to play. The full power of Rahman’s musical genius washes over me like water from the dam that Shah Rukh builds in the movie. Javed Akhtar lends a hand—

Yu toh saare sukh hai barse, par door tu hai apne ghar se.

Shah Rukh contributes by staring at India on a globe, tears slowly turning his eyes reflective. What chance does a mere mortal stand against this? 

Ashutosh Gowariker is also to blame. Image source

Now the hole can fit two pani puris. 

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I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did! Head over to Amrita’s newsletter - Learning To Be Happy - to check out more fantastic pieces, as cheery as they are contemplative.

I loved the prompt I received from Amrita and had a blast writing my side of the barter. I am not revealing the prompt here; read the piece to know why! You can read it in her newsletter - click on the latest issue titled ‘Crossover Episode’.