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Disclaimer: This write-up is biased in favor of the fairer sex; and though I may sound holier-than-thou, I myself, at times, have been guilty of practising the ungentlemanly habit described here.
A few days ago I came across this news item in The Times of India: ‘Lake in Oregon (USA) drained after man pees into it.’ Nearly eight million gallons of water was siphoned-off from the said lake after security cameras caught a man urinating in it. The Oregon state administration clearly over-reacted to the episode, considering that urine of a healthy human is quite harmless, more so when just a couple of hundred milliliters of it goes into 8 million gallons of water. However, a similar administration in India would need to empty practically all water bodies- everyday. Because irrespective of age, class, education and status, an average Indian male would unzip and take a leak just about anywhere if a loo is not found nearby, and sometimes even if it is. If they happen to be in water- in a river, a lake, the sea, and sometimes even the swimming pool, they’d piss underwater (no need to even unzip then). Don’t look too hard around a car parked by the road with the blinkers on- there is a high possibility of finding at least one man with his pants down. What do men think while peeing this way? They think- I don’t see anyone means no one is seeing me. That’s thinking like the ostrich that has its head buried in the sand. The fact of the matter is that such men are very visible to everyone- even when they stand obliquely behind a tree. This (un)manly habit goes against the women folk in two ways: One, not only do they have to bear the disgust of witnessing such a scene, they have to act unfazed at all times, as if they’ve seen nothing at all. Second, this being a ‘man’s’ world, and hence the civic bodies being ‘for men’ too, nobody in the administration has ever felt the need to build enough public loos for the sake of the ladies. How many times have we heard our ladies whisper to us when in public, ‘Psst! I need to go!’ Every time we’re on the highway on a long drive, the ladies traveling with us are the most discomforted lot. That is why, perhaps, the most innovative ‘dhabas’ on the highways specifically advertise the presence of a ‘clean ladies toilet’ on their premises to woo motorists. The signboard would read, ‘Pure Veg. Ladies toilet available’. And we do pull up at these places irrespective of the quality of food served. In cities, ladies ‘go’ in public places like malls etc. Many times this is detrimental to us men. Once, my wife and daughter went into a mall to relieve themselves. They returned half an hour later carrying bag-loads of shopping. Their trip to the loo cost me Rs. 8335 that night. Therefore, I am in favor of construction of more and more public toilets- the ‘sulabh shauchalays’ are painfully too few, and that too only in the metros and few other big cities.
I’ll sign off with this joke I heard somewhere: Santa opened a new account on Facebook. After thinking hard about the first thing to write on his ‘Wall’, he wrote: Yahan su su karna mana hai! I’d say Balle, balle to that.
6 comments:
Ishtyaque, leave aside the option of having more public toilets, it would be enough even if the ones that are there are clean and hygenic!! This goes both for the administration as well as public.. Once in public toilet people it seems forget that there is a flush to be used!!! At many places they dont have facility of water only in public toilets!! Hence all public toilets in our country be it the paid ones or in malls are almost the same, with stench reaching distances.... And the ones at railway stns or bus stops are not even worth mentioning....
It is a sad state of things that we do not have a single public toilet in ankleshwar gidc which is supposed to be the largest industrial cluster anywhere in india. dialy multitude of people who do not have access to toilets in the company premises visit this area and they as usual have no option but to find some corner to relieve themselves.Inability of public toilets is the usual reason but this problem can be corrected. Small religious places are cropping up in areas where people gather (like tempo and auto stands) built by the same people who are forced to urinate in the open embracing themselves????? and others. So i think there is a clash of priorities or maybe it is a reflection of our attitude to towards others that we do not give a damn about public cleanliness and being an affront to other.
Shivinder, You are right but when I say public toilets, I do mean clean public toilets :))
Mahesh, agree with you fully!
Yes! :)). May be in our country people are so used to relieving out in the open when outside their homes that even when they use public toilets they use it as if peeing out in the open and hence litter it badly ;))
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