Sanctimonia Binocs, Bhubaneswar, 16 August 2025
Hark, ye perpetually constipated and thoroughly disheartened citizens of Sanctimonia! A new crisis has befallen our kingdom, a tragedy so mundane yet so profound it has brought our tourism industry to its knees. Our king, a man who views all matters of state with a regal detachment, was startled to discover a precipitous drop in the number of pilgrims and tourists. Even the neighboring kingdom, which audaciously claims to possess its own holy triad, is outperforming us!
Jokes aside, the king, in a rare moment of genuine concern, turned to his Deputy CM for Tourism and demanded answers. The Deputy CM, a figure of surprising bureaucratic efficiency, ordered his research cell to get to the bottom of it. The results, as it turns out, were more stomach-turning than a week-old royal feast. The findings were not about political instability, rising crime, or even the lack of saffron flags; they were about the bathrooms.
It seems the fall in tourist numbers is due to the utter and complete failure of our hotel bathrooms to meet the most basic standards of human dignity. The research found that the commodes, far from being a place of serene relief, are a source of profound distress. The toilet seats, made of the most inferior materials, are not only unclean, but they are also prone to giving way, slipping from the rim and forcing a state of perpetual concentration on the user. This, as the research astutely notes, leads to a national epidemic of constipation, as the users’ bodies simply refuse to “go” under such stressful conditions. For those of a heavier constitution, the experience is even more perilous. The cheap plastic seats bend and crack, and the cost of this porcelain calamity is, of course, added to their bill at check-out.
But the main reason, the chief villain in this tragic farce, is the faucet. This is no ordinary faucet, but a serpentine contraption of low-quality flexible tubing that cannot be straightened. It juts out at an unpredictable angle, its force of water a mystery, leaving users to grapple with it as if fighting a mighty Indian python. To make matters worse, the clip of the faucet, a cruel and unforgiving piece of metal, pinches the most sensitive parts of the body, a silent, un-screamable torment that no devotee should ever have to endure.
The moral of this sorry tale is simple, and it was emblazoned in the research findings for all to see: a good commode and a safe, functional faucet are more important for tourism than all the holy triads in the kingdom. Until then, our kingdom will remain as empty of tourists as our commodes are of “relief.”
