Life without TP - it's not impossible
Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 07:48PM Contrary to what you might gather from media reports this last fortnight, the worst thing about coronavirus is not the scarcity of toilet paper. In fact, it’s quite possible to live a civilised life without the stuff.
‘TP’, as my mum used to call it on her shopping lists, was not always a part of my life. Or not TP as we know it – soft and thick and nicely packaged up and sitting on the supermarket shelf for a reasonable price.
You couldn’t get toilet paper in India, where my family lived, until comparatively recently. Traditional practice is to pour a receptacle full of water down your bottom with your right hand, cleaning with your left. You wash thoroughly after of course, and you never eat or exchange greetings with your left hand.
This works perfectly well, and avoids the production of mountains of soggy, soiled paper. Who among us has not gagged at the sight of a pile of human excrement, crowned with smeared and stinking paper in an otherwise pristine picnic spot? When you think about it, wiping with paper that takes a long time to break down is a disgusting habit.
Living in India in the 50s and 60s, my resourceful mother painstakingly cut the Manchester Guardian, which she had mailed out from England regularly, into little squares with which we cleaned our nether regions. Countless bush dunnies did the same, with the local rag or an old phone book hung on a nail on the back of the door.
At boarding school we had toilet paper, but it was strictly rationed. There was none in the actual cubicles; it hung at the entry to the communal loos, so that you had to estimate how much you were going to need and tear it off accordingly, supervised by our intimidating matron, who literally counted the squares.
Over many visits back to India, I filled my suitcase with toilet paper on the outward journey. When I lived there for most of a year, I simply did as the locals do. It didn’t take long to get used to and I didn’t get sick once.
Over the years of living in an affluent society, however, I’ve become soft. I appreciate having an inexpensive and abundant supply of TP. But I know that if I really have to manage without the stuff, I can. As we head into an uncertain future, we may soon learn that there are a lot of ‘essentials’ we can manage without.
This was published in The Melbourne Age on 18 March 2020
Reader Comments (1)
Growing up in provincial Victoria in the 1950's we didn't have the Manchester Guardian but the local newspaper was a worthy substitute TP. As a child I was able to practice my reading, at least of small articles which were confined within the available area of the paper.
Your blog reminded me of an saying from a few years ago, "Live simply so that others may simply live!"