India will always be a developing
country. The civility of our countrymen will force it to remain that way. We
just cannot let go of our animal like tendencies and make way to something less
grotesque.
So I understand that we derived
the idea of shitting and peeing anywhere and everywhere from our ancestors the
Chimpanzees or conceptually the early Man. But while the rest of the world
evolved into people with stance and etiquette, we stuck like glue to our age
old barbaric living. We continued blessing the land with our faeces and piddle
undisturbed, in every land or nook left unattended and unused. Our citizens, be
it man or woman, do not believe in false modesty by shying away from the
concept of pooping together while the rest of the world passes them unperturbed.
I have spent 14 yrs of my life
seeing the buttocks of a considerate number of slum dwellers as the bus dropped
me to school every morning and if in case I got too busy to notice the
defecating ceremony, I could still catch a glimpse or two through the windows
of my classroom. All this became possible due to the large ground facing the
slums and located right in front of my school, which the thoughtful government
kept free for conducting small sports activities. Every morning, the slum
dwellers, irrespective of their gender, age or butt cheek size, march towards
the ground with a mug of water, unload the previous days load and frolic back
with a smile of satisfaction on their face. On the same ground every year in
the month of October, thousands of people including me stand to joyfully celebrate
the bursting away of Ravana. To prep up of the land for the Dussehra
celebrations, the munificent municipal corporation comes with truckload of sand
to carpet the land fully pasted with human poop. The land becomes a fresh open
toilet for the slum dwellers from the next day onwards.
Soon the less barbaric lot of the
city, wrote and pestered the local government to build public toilets on that
land for the satisfaction of both the excreting slum dweller and the forced to
watch plebeians. Hence, a line of toilets were built upon the area which was
poop coated every day. But they say it right, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new
tricks’. While some the residents started using the newly built toilets,
majority continued to practice their age old tradition by sitting right outside
the toilet and defecating, sometimes accompanied by domestic animals. The dog
and the master pooped together and that my friend is the equality we were unceasingly
searching for.
The human mind is hard to
decipher and the act of those who had a toilet to use but were persistent on
passing stool on an open land, is still being researched upon. Even a notice
was pasted on the walls of the toilet that not even a penny is charged for
using the toilet, made brick by brick only for the slum dwellers.
The reason for ignoring the amenities
could be many. May be it is the joy of a taking a dump in the company of your
family and friends. Maybe it’s their preferred way to discuss the current
affairs of the world. Maybe it’s their chance of meeting new people. Maybe it’s
the view. Like I said, the human mind is hard to decipher.
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