A Useful Handicap

The common bathrooms and toilets in a government college hostel are unchallenged in lack of cleanliness. The misery of the place starts with the careless way the contractor built it. Then walk in the students who use it with equal disrespect and carelessness. The bathrooms in our college hostels too were dark and dingy places considered as unavoidable mess by students and cleaning staff. Floors littered with soap covers and pieces of clothing left over by seemingly busy but actually careless users. The constant use and lack of proper drainage of water and ventilation left the walls damp. Green algae has grown out in places where the tiles had given away or worn out. Floors remain slippery. Then there is the damp unclean smell mixed with smell of a variety of soaps and shampoos. Big spiders would have made there webs at safer heights where the students would not care to disturb and the good old cleaner would not bother to clean. The doors were creaking and wet. The doors need some brain and brawn to handle.

In my Floor in college hostel there was this one bathroom with an added handicap. It had a mal-functioning tap. Courtesy the lack of water, this one was not used by anyone. It remained dry. It got time to remain dry which ensured the well being of the bathroom floors. The green algae never bothered the white tiled walls. Worried that he has not done anything for this bathroom the cleaner always looked up and cleaned the cobwebs in this one. It was not cluttered by various junk the students leave by.

By accident I found out that a precise 3 turns and pull upwards made this tap work. It remained free for my private use then on. At regular intervals few others too inspected the tap, on failing to operate it they moved on, with few words of curse. But I always felt this was the best in the entire hostel.