When I was last in India, around new years, I took a lot of photos of signs (Posts: 1, 2, 3) Of all the ones I saw, however, these two were my favorites. I spotted them at a Reliance truck stop / Dhaba on a toll road in Gujarat, late at night.
The first sign clearly indicates a ladies room, but in a very desi way. This is what I’d always hoped for from modern India; not a straight forward cloning of the west, but instead a bollystyle mashup, a “blend of eastern and western” tackyness. Yes, I know that not all Indian women wear saris, I’m Punjabi. But it’s still more apposite than a woman in a dress, and for Gujarat, it’s dead on many Gujarati women wear saris, albeit in the local style.
The second one I love because it takes the mickey out of the western name for the facilities, the “bathroom”. You know, if you’re doing #2 in a tub, I really don’t want to know about it. Toilets are for p*ssing and sh*tting in, bathrooms are for bathing in. And better still, this icon doesn’t show a western style shower (which many truck drivers may never have used) but instead an Indian style bath (or a very confused man using a lota wrongly 
). It’s a shame these signs aren’t available for import here …
Oh yes, in case you were curious, the men’s room was spotless (unlike this: 1, 2) My nostalgia for traditional dhabas only goes so far …
