Dude needs to wash his hands! I was at the theaters this afternoon watching the much hyped My Name is Khan. As most of you know, when you go to the theaters, more often than not, you find yourself hitting the john at some point! News Flash – it’s all that soda you consume. After today, not sure if I’ll be consuming any food items anytime soon in any of the theaters in Kathmandu. Here’s why:

I had to hit the men’s room as soon as I stepped inside the facility. It was all that soda I had previously consumed up on the food court at the City Center Mall’s food court in Kamalpokhari. My first preference was the newly opened Big Cinemas at the Mall – but they were sold out. So it was either a long walk to Jaya Nepal in front of Narayanhiti or Kumari, only a 2 minute walk away. For the naturally lazy person like yours truly, the choice of course, was natural.

Speaking of nature, the men’s room was semi-crowded as it always is in these movie-going deals. As soon as I was done, I went to the sink to wash my hands. For the crowd in the men’s room, the sink was deserted. Not one dude there was anywhere around the vicinity of the hand-washing sink. Wondering about their valentines, I left. This one dude I unintentionally followed out went straight up to his date, grabbed a handful of popcorn from the popcorn bag she was holding, and started munching. She soon followed suit.

Shaking my head, I went in and enjoyed the first half of the movie. Again during the intermission, I hit the rest room. This time, it was not as crowded as it was earlier. There was at least one other guy in there. I recognized him in an instant. It was the same security guard who earlier couldn’t get the line to the box-office in order. He was touching a few people then as he trying very hard to keep them in queue. Anyway, this dude does his deed, and heads straight for the door! I couldn’t stop him even though I wanted to as I was, you know, a little busy. I think I let the other people on the zigzag line outside who he would go and soon touch, down.

Dismayed, I went back to the below average (in presentation) movie – content was good, and so were the individual performances of the movie’s leads – Mr. Shah Rukh Khan and Mrs. Devgan. All the while I was thinking this: had the guy that served me tea inside Kumari washed his hands? How about the server in Nanglo yesterday? How about the cook who made that awesome khasi ko masu ko choila? How about the bartender who opened my beer? How about … oh my god? I’ll just go barf away!

Can these service providing facilities at least post a sign in their rest rooms where the sign clearly states “All Employees must wash hands” or something to that effect? Can these facilities hold some sort of hygienic training for their employees? Or at least provide hand sniffing dog somewhere in their facilities who in a sniff can detect whether or not that hand’s clean and bite it off if it isn’t (for the filthy employees, of course)? In case you all are wondering, the rest room in Kumari was pretty clean – thank goodness! Are you listening Kathmandu Model Hospital?