Toilets First.

            KTC Panaji bus-stand has something in common with Air India’s Airbus Dreamliner: blocked and unusable toilets.

One Dreamliner flight returned to base because of this problem.  I read that passengers flush unusual things down the pot, including pillows. (Why do passengers discard pillows? How do pillows, however small, fit into those miniature ‘pot-holes’ anyway?) Has AI stopped providing pillows? Anyone knows?

KTC buses and their passengers on the other hand, like their bhaav-bhainni all over India, are not inconvenienced by the clogging and choking. They (passengers) off-load their undigested/unwanted physiological baggage wherever they can: behind parked buses, for example. Frequent bus-travellers have oversized bladders and strong unmentionable muscles. Or, more likely, kidney/ intestinal problems. We’ll never hear about them because news-gatherers are busy chasing tweeters and face-bookers.  They (the reporters, not the social-media enthusiasts) don’t consider discomfort due to non-expulsion of excreta a human-interest ‘story’ until teenage girls who can’t hold it in any longer venture out into the fields and are raped and killed.

Our village home in un-Liberated Goa and for some years after, had a pig-operated loo: a shed on stilts that stood some metres away from the backdoor of the house. We climbed stairs to reach the squatting-platform. Below the opening were slanting planks of wood on which we dumped, shall we say, ‘pig-food’? The animals came oinking curiously, partaking of the offerings, leaving when the platter was clean. KTC could use pigs. Effective, eco-friendly, inexpensive and no labour problems.

In a small town Tamil Nadu, the bus-stand had a smaller than usual squat toilet used, the woman collecting the payment told me, “strictly for number one”.  (Does any other country charge for peeing?) The cubicles were clean, smelling heavily of perfumed cleaning products. But there were no doors. I was unsuitably clad, in jeans. Some women were kind enough to ‘screen’ me with their sari-pallavs to keep my dignity intact.

In Rajasthan, where the desert heat rapidly dehydrates every drop of moisture, there are localities where the open sewage naalaas run along the sides of the roads, touching the walls of the houses that line it. The front-doors of the houses have a stone-slab that connects them to the road.  One steps on the slab, crosses the sewage-filled naalaa and enters a house. The dehydration does not dispel the stink. Locals are used to it and giggle when strangers like me take a hanky to their noses. I’ve sat in someone’s drawing-room here, staring at a ‘show-case’ inside which were plastic dolls in frilly frocks, replicas of the Taj Mahal, and some framed photos of gods/ ancestors. I declined chai-nashta because the nausea inside me wouldn’t subside.

In Siachen, at 6,300-metres (20,800-feet) above sea-level, our brave jawans live (and work hard to keep us safe) in the world’s most hostile terrain. Many have died here gasping. The conditions at that height are cruel to the lungs. One wrote, “Lying down, turning over in bed is an effort. Every breath feels like we have been running for miles.”

Siachen winter temperatures plummet to minus fifty degrees Celsius. Everything freezes. Excreta freezes. Excreta does not decompose here and poses major hygiene problems. When the summer temperatures melt the ice, the ‘waste’ flows down, polluting the rivers below. The excreta of thousands of soldiers in Siachen has to be lifted by helicopters and taken elsewhere for disposal!

To deal with this problem, the Defence Research and Development Organisation created a non-flushing "bio-digester" toilet. Self-multiplying bacteria are mixed with human waste in specially-made tanks. There are multiple versions of this toilet. The bacteria used in the mountain version were originally found in Antarctica. In the hot tropical plains another cocktail can be used. Methane gas and water are produced through this process. Lakshadweep is using these bio-digesters. Goa should start manufacturing these. 

The nearly-extinct chawls of Mumbai had one set of toilets located at the end of a corridor which were used by the families that lived on that floor. Bathrooms were separate. Bucket and mug ruled. Roaches and earthworms flourished in the crevices. Today, combined toilets and bathrooms (with showers) ‘attached’ to bedrooms are not restricted to the privileged class in urban areas.  

The North Goa tourist belt restaurants are well-equipped to deal with personal emergencies.

But the temples that visitors flock to that cater to spiritual needs seldom acknowledge, leave alone address, physical needs. Maybe NaMo had visited one of those. I remember him saying, “Pehele shauchalya, phir devalay.”

Tathastu, Mr PM.

We’re waiting.

(Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in)