I always thought that I was good at geography but
recently I have been constantly proven wrong by my colleagues, when they
announce that we have won yet another project in an Indian city I never heard
of in my life. Yes you guessed right, I am the one that gets to travel as a
guinea pig to that mysterious exotic destination, and yes, it is even more
mysterious that, considering how many projects we win that my bonuses keep
getting smaller. But thats subject for another post
This time the selected exotic destination was the
legendary city of Patna, in the North of India , capital of the State of Bihar,
which has turned out to be the centre of a social experiment were towels have
replaced casts.
Yes you heard right , towels , those apparently innocent
piece of clothing that we have in our houses that hide more mysterious meanings
that one can imagine.
My first questions about the true meaning of towels date
from my early childhood. To be more specific from the early 80s when Spanish
women had the odd tradition of dumping their spouses for the weekend and travel
hundred of kilometers to cross the border and buy towels in Portugal. Of course
at that age of innocence I assumed Portuguese cotton was a sort of precious gem
and was a fetish similar to what shoes are nowadays.
It wasn’t till later in life when I start questioning the
real reason behind that cotton obsession. Were Portuguese men more liberal than
Spanish? Did the Fado caused same inhibitions to women as rap nowadays judging
by their loose women behavior in the rap music videos?
And when I thought I have hit a dead end in my
investigations I discovered today a new piece of evidence in the other side of
the world, that can change forever the understanding of towels.
At first I did not realized of the extent of the
discovery. It took me a few minutes, actually till the crowd of the meeting I
was assigned to attend as poster boy of the company switched to hindi and I
decided to abandon any attempt to show interest ( to be fair it was kind of a
relief , as meeting was far from interesting in the first place)
At the beginning the towels covering every seat puzzled
me but in a fan way. First I thought the roof of the meeting room may be
leaking and They were was a way to protect the chair upholstery.
Later I thought maybe we were all expected to go swimming
in the Ganges as part of a celebratory session to celebrate the new contract. I
even thought that the mysterious door at the end of the room hided a sauna and
we were supposed to discuss the clauses covered only by those towels like if we
were in a Roman Thermal Bath discussing the Republic with Julius Caesar.
Then the hindi switch make me observe the room more in
detail to distract my mind and it was when I realized of the situation. The
towels were not all the same. The ones by the table were pristine white, and
those on the outside were blue. I asked, my always well informed colleague,
about the situation, and he explained that white towels were for those with
seniority ( white collar ) while the blue ones were specifically selected to
separate the subordinates ( blue collard ).
The situation took another twist when in our next meeting
where only the higher authority attending was granted the towel privilege while
the rest ( not Government members) were exposed to the bare chairs. How
humiliating it was!
We human beings get quickly used to the privileges I must
say, and not getting the towel was hurting in the same way when the air hostess
points you towards the end of the aircraft and you say goodbye to your last
hope of getting upgraded to business class.
Are towels a Masonic symbol? Maybe not , but an advice
for those wanting to live like the rich and famous, forget about the Italian
sport car, buy a good Portuguese towel.
