The obvious conclusion that comes to our mind is that the businessmen with an intention to make hay while the sun shines quoted obscene figures for tissue papers. However, if we try and look deeper, there could be more to it.
There seems to be a combination of two factors which play an important role here: the increase in the importance of bathroom as a space and the elements which form a part of it and the foreign (therefore expensive) perception which is attached to the tissue paper.
Let’s look at the first one. Bathroom as a space has evolved over the years. There was a time when settlements existed next to rivers and other water bodies and people took a bath in it. Over time, the bathrooms came into existence and evolved from being community spaces to corners outside or within the compound of the house. Then came in the first version of how we know bathrooms as today. Usually there used to be one common bathroom in a house. The Indian hole in the ground also evolved into the Indian commode and then into the western commode. Today, we normally see bathrooms attached to the bedrooms along with one which is commonly reserved for guests.
The above can be understood as an increase in the importance that bathroom as a space occupies in our life and our perception about it. Even the language used to describe the act of ablution has changed. Earlier the mother would normally ask the kid ‘bathroom karo’ while asking it to ‘go to the loo’. The act was replaced by the place in the phrase as if it was an act that must not be named and the place was an easier way to describe a dirty difficult process. Today, the common term used is ‘toilet karo’ a phrase which includes specifying the act in it and thus reducing the association to being something dirty. The act is no more considered as completely base and the language used to describe it has also evolved accordingly.
The second aspect to consider is the perception about ‘toilet paper’ in the Indian mindset. Dry clean was never a part of the Indian culture. It came into existence with Indian’s travelling abroad and experiencing (often with a lot of difficulty), international hotels entering the Indian markets and domestic hotels stacking it for the convenience of the tourists. Even today, it is rare to find the toilet paper in Indian bathrooms. In houses where it is present, it is usually for the occasional guests or for other uses such as cleaning the mirror or drying the wash-basin.
Thus, if we try to understand what ‘toilet paper’ means to Indians, we can assume that it like a foreign element which doesn’t find much utility in their lives or in the bathroom. It does not form a part of the essential/ regular accessories which are a must for the bathroom but more of an article which must be kept for show-value or for the occasional use of outsiders. Thus the perceived value of this item, being foreign and not being a regular-use and non-essential low price accessory is much higher than what its real price is.
When we juxtapose the above two discussion together we see that on one side, the importance of bathroom and its elements and the price associated with them has gone up, and on the other side, toilet paper has a much higher perceived value in the minds of Indians, we can probably find an answer to why this article (which should be so lowly priced) was so hugely over-priced.
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