The Hindu Business Line : It spells class

Guess which room the house owner proudly shows off to his guests on grahapravesh day? The glamour bathroom. Today, in many a home, this purely utility area of the house has been transformed into a proud showpiece.

From a simple water closet and a tap on a mosaic floor, the room has evolved into a hi-tech comfort zone for you to spend your personal time in a relaxed ambience. Mind you, this room is not just a fashion statement, but an expression of the owner's creativity.

How has that come about? And all in a matter of two to three decades?

Vidya Subramaniam of Vaigai Sanitation, who has marked her presence in the rough and tumble of tile retailing, sees it as woman-power at play.

The present-day woman demands a say in the designing of the house. And in many middle class houses, she pitches in with the funds too. So she would naturally prefer materials that give her optimum hygiene with easier maintenance.

Abdul Hameed Khan, a major dealer in high-end bathroom products, sees it as a reflection of changing life styles where aesthetics plays as important a role as value for money in the designing of the room. Also, the influence of western lifestyle and habits comes into play.

For the floors and the walls, you have a wide range of tiles. The designs, colours, combinations, sizes and texture of tiles on offer to suit every purse and every taste are really breathtaking.

With the advent of polymer modified adhesives and grouts, "the happening thing is glass and natural stone mosaics for the walls and floors," says S. Muralidharan of Padma Enterprises, a dealer in premium range tiles and accessories. He prefers silicon sealants to polymer grouts to ensure better hygiene and finish.

As for the fittings, from the ubiquitous unbranded mass products to Marc to Jaguar to Aqua Plus to the imported ones from Villeroy & Boch, everything is available in the market.

The range of accessories varies from towel racks for the entire family to a small soap dish holder. Some of the popular brands are ESS and the Sheraton range of Aqua Plus.

In sanitary ware too there is a mind-boggling range of products from domestic manufacturers such as EID Parry India and Hindustan Sanitaryware.

And if you are prepared to pay a premium for quality, you can have imported bath cubicles costing upwards of Rs 3 lakhs, and sleek wall mounted units.

Jaccuzzis, multi-jet system, temperature control, multi-music system, mood lighting, flood lighting ... you name it and you'll get it, with back-up services too.

If bathrooms are becoming glamorous, the showrooms selling the concept are one step ahead. Both Vidya and Khan agree that consumers are better informed and make critical choices.

The former points out that till a few years ago, it was the mason who would come to her shop to place orders.

Now the entire family spends hours at the showroom, discussing the themes, the designs and the colours for the room. A bath tub is a norm for any 3-bed room apartment.

Khan's showroom in Chennai, Allied Ceramics Corporation, offers about 1,000 concepts, all exclusive, and most of them imported.

With globalisation, he has to keep introducing new ranges periodically. "Where there used to be a time lag of about a year for the latest in Europe to arrive here, now it is not even a month," he says. The latest trend abroad is the rectified tiles.

Vidya, who is a regular at the Italian fairs for the past few years, asserts domestic manufacturers do offer products that match the imported ones in terms of design and colour.

"Hind Sanitaryware," she says, "supplies her at least two new designs every two months."

T.P. Rangarajan, Regional Manager, Nitco Tiles, is categorical that his company's products can compete globally.

The company, which has been into mosaic manufacturing for years, moved into the ceramics space only five years ago. And the ceramics division is already seeing substantial volumes — a definite sign of the shifting preferences.

EID Parry, the first to tag `glamour' to bathrooms, is now shifting its focus to hygiene and water-efficiency. G. Rabindranath Rao, Senior Manager (Marketing), claims his company is the first in the country to offer anti-microbial seat covers and flush knobs for its cisterns under the brand.

For multi-user rooms, it is offering touch-free flushing devices. It also offers its customers annual maintenance of their bathrooms by its customer care centre. To meet the challenges on the import front, it has an arrangement with the Muthoot group, which makes sanitaryware for export to US.

Muralidharan says though everything is available, it is surprising that fully coordinated bathroom designing has not yet caught up. Another thing missing are software studios for designing bathrooms. Perhaps, it is only a matter of time before we move to signature bathrooms as in developed countries.

A word of caution, however. Most of these hi-tech gizmos would work only if water pressure is maintained at a certain level.

A small pressure pump mounted on the wall costing around Rs 20,000 should take care of it.

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