Whoever made the statement that the country hosts more temples than toilets, during the initial days following the call from the top brass in the government on October 2, 2014, for people to give up the time–honoured, read time-endured, open defecation in the land seems to have taken both the sublime (worshipping) and the mundane (defecation) lightly, to the chagrin of the devout and ridicule of the rest. The laudable, certainly overdue, appeal to the country’s diaspora for joining hands with the administration to achieve a clean India (Swacch Bharat) unwittingly got zeroed to the point of people in all walks of life openly debating the issue of open defecation finally settling in unanimity for creating toilets on a national scale as it were, not minding the cost.
The media reports that followed the clarion call to rid the country of the habit conspicuously featuring the rural people gave the impression that might reverse the aforementioned conjectural opinion connecting temple and toilet. However, the debate seems to have cooled off with no complete picture concerning toilets.
Defecating, open or covered, has not been bestowed a place for open discussion among the land’s literati, until the nation got embroiled in public debates on the demerits of the habit. Even digital technology earned an opportunity to help the matter, thanks to the designing of e-toilets, whatever it may mean. Given the feature of toilets across the United States of America namely, half-doors and no water, but tissue paper for wiping the butt clean, prompts one to remark that defecating is no big deal for the people of that country. The community in Andhra Pradesh whose members reportedly defecate about once a week must have laughed at the hullabaloo about toilet by the people.
To digress, open defecation, out in the fields, necessitating the posture of squatting may invite a revisit to the decision on toilets, given a recently published report based on a study that squat is the king of exercises. The major snag in changing over to use of toilet namely paucity of water cannot be ignored.
This post was published on January 25, 2019 5:55 pm