Holy Crap!

Who’d have thought Indian asses would get such a warm, fuzzy welcome from an American hotel chain!

Times sure have changed!

Don’t get me wrong now.

By asses, I don’t mean those poor quadrupeds that bray and trot uneasily beneath their heavy burden.

I mean the literal brown asses of my fellow brown-skinned Indians.

Mug in Toilet of NYC Indian Restaurant

Ass Kissing

To pander to Indian asses, some prominent hotels in the Starwood Hotels chain including Sheraton, Le Méridien and St.Regis have lately started keeping mugs in the bathrooms.

As we desis know well, Indians have an abiding love for the mug and enduring distaste for paper when it comes to cleaning their Hindu asses.

Westerners would be surprised to learn that 1.2 billion Indians start the day with a mug.

When it comes to cleansing their asses, there’s one mantra Indians have taken to heart for millenniums:

Mug of Water + Left Hand = Nirvana

The Indian penchant to wash their Hindu asses with a mug of water is as old as the hills.

Kali Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, in any era water has been the sole savior of Indian bottoms.

Rama, Sita, Krishna, Draupadi and her multiple husbands and their countless devotees have rejoiced in the soothing feel of H2O flowing down the eddies and nooks of their Hindu derrières every morning.

Like French philosopher René Descartes’ famous coinage Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), Indians have developed an equally famous dictum, I’m Indian, therefore I use mug.

Unity in Diversity

Indians may be divided by language, caste, religion and region but the mug unites them all.

The telecom billionaire in his Noida farm-house on the outskirts of the country’s capital New Delhi, the rag-picker in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum and a dirt-poor farmer in Tirunelveli district in the deep south of India are all brought together by the mug.

So strong is the Indian attachment to the mug that not even their migration to distant shores has unglued the mug-bond.

You can take the Indian out of India but you can never yank the mug from an Indian’s hand.

Indian restaurants in New York City and New Jersey routinely keep a mug in toilets as a “Welcome Home, You’re Now Among Friends” gesture to desis. 😉

Fecal Revolution

So unbounded is the Indian passion for water flowing down their brown asses that they have polluted every river, lake, pond and puddle in Mera Bharat Mahaan with fecal matter.

Public water pollution with human fecal matter is high across India.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the only revolution that’s swept the length and breadth of India since Independence is the fecal revolution and pollution of all water bodies.

Touching Gesture

Since Indians are becoming rich thanks to all the outsourcing from Western countries, a lot of multinational companies have embarked on an orgy of kissing Indian asses.

After all, to a capitalist it doesn’t matter what color his customer’s ass as long as he has money.

But no American business has taken ass-kissing so seriously as the Starwood Hotels chain, which is now leaving mugs in the bathroom/toilet of hotel rooms for the benefit of Indian visitors.

Apparently, keeping mugs in hotel toilets/bathrooms is part of the Starwood Personalized Travel program of “simple, yet meaningful touches that matter most to the Indian guest.”

Mugs in hotels must be a big relief to Telugu biddas since a couple of biddas from India paid a heavy price for using a coffee cup as a mug in a NYC hotel two years ago.

I won’t be surprised if Airlines and Cruise operators embrace the mug strategy to woo more Indian travelers.

Mug Route

Forget the old Silk Route traversed by Marco Polo and so many travelers in the past.

Mug Route is the new Mecca to corporate profits.

After all, Indians are said to be on track to triple their outbound travel to 30 million trips per year by 2020 (source: Starwood Hotels).

Sheraton Centre Toronto, Le Méridien Ile Maurice, Mauritius, W Barcelona, Sheraton Macau Hotel Cotai Central and The St. Regis Florence are among the first Starwood Hotels to take the “Mug Route” to pleasing Indian travelers.

Early mug catches the Indian bird.

Besides the mug in the bathroom, Starwood Hotels’ other “meaningful touches” to woo Indian travelers include offering beverages like Masala Chai and breakfasts such as Dosa, Poori and Paratha.

Starwood Sales Organization’s Senior Vice President Christie Hicks said:

The anticipated surge in Indian outbound travel presents Starwood with a tremendous opportunity to stand out from the competition in how we welcome Indian guests and meet their needs. As the largest hotel operator of four and five star hotels in India, we have cultivated a loyal following among travelers within the country and now we’re focused on making them feel at home at our hotels across the globe.

Starwood is also supposedly well-positioned to meet rising demand from Indians for weddings and other special events in popular destinations such as Thailand, Maldives, Dubai and Mauritius.

I can’t help but wonder if the White House will keep a mug handy when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes calling in late September. 😉

Viva la Mug.