The hiss of the tissue nobility

The hiss of the tissue nobility

Kiru Naidoo

No one from Chatsworth has won the Nobel Prize yet. I am certain it will happen one day. When it does I hope it will be for someone who invents a silent toilet spray. Nothing announces the nature of your business more loudly than that condensed hiss of strawberries and cream. 

Now these are middle class woes.  In days of yore we had no such trouble.  The toilet was either a distance from the house or facing outside.  In Unit 3 the toilet was outside the kitchen door with yet another door to shield from the elements.  In Unit 2 the toilet was attached to the building but outside altogether. 

  

Nuclear emissions gently wafted off into the yard or in the direction of the neighbours.  If matters got overly offensive, I bunch of strong incense and a few curses were hurriedly procured. 

Lavatory duties were a defined part of my childhood chores.  Let’s just say I had oversight of the mopping up unit.  Usually it was every second party who had need for my services.  The older generation made do with a chomboo of water and a deft left hand.  I dealt with the paperwork for the rest. 

These were days long before double ply Baby Soft with little puppy patterns.  Old newspapers had to be chopped up in even squares and hung on a nail behind the toilet door.  Those with scant regard for abrasions used the squares as they found them.  The more sensitive types splashed a slash of water.  Annually there was the little luxury of the expired telephone directory which came in the softer white and Yellow Pages. 

It was the weekend business that I especially looked forward to.  My maternal grandfather, Vasantharajulu Naidu, Thatha, lived with my mother’s sister, my delightful Big Amma about three kilometres away in the renting scheme part of Unit 3. 

He was also called Jumbo Naidu.  I recall him removing his hat and stooping to get his head under the door frame.  To my little skinny self he looked all of seven feet tall.  He was always in a suit with a waistcoat.  In the waistcoat pocket he carried a little square tube of Kiltys.  These sweets came in pinks and mauves and were usually in a sickly musk flavour.  Whereas other kids got whole packets of sweets or Simba chips from their grandparents, all my younger brother, sister and I got were fingernail portions. 

My grandfather had these steely grey eyes whether on account of his age or his colourful ancestry I cannot be sure.  Suffice to say that he had a command and correct way about him.  Whenever our mother left us in his care to go off to the market, there was no bouncing on grandad’s knee.  He directed us into shorts and vests. We lined up for physical training.  Extending our arms, touching our toes and the like.

To the less kindly, Vasantharajulu Jumbo was also known as Patches.  That needs little explanation.  He patched everything.  Everything. In fact his clothes had so many patches it was hard to work out what was original.  

Now coming back to the lavatorial element of this story.  On Saturday when Thatha visited we felt like the nobility.  My grandfather walked through the vegetable market.  He had friends there. He was an old farmer himself, dispossessed, depressed and destroyed by the Group Areas Act. 

William pears and starking apples were among the prized fruit at the market.  His connection kept all the soft tissue papers that were used to wrap these delicate fruit. 

And so it came to pass that all weekend we alighted the throne in considerably greater comfort.