World toilet day
The UN has declared Nov.19th as the world Toilet day.
We have lived and grown up with toilets, of course during our younger days when we travelled we never used public toilets since we were worried about hygiene with the advent of pay toilets those are taken care off too.
The impact of open defection never really struck in, after all at school we were thought that one method of seed dispersion was undigested seeds in the faecal matter.
At the medical school the impact of water borne disease and zoonosis kind of seeped in.
Last year when I went with the Banega Swach Bharat drive of NDTV I realized the greater impact of it, there was a man who wanted toilets constructed because he wife died when she slipped as she went out the fields. Gone were the days people looked at costing, the issue that the public presented was know how, they knew they needed toilets, they wanted the toilets too, the issue was how would the sewage handle it self they did not want it let loose into the fields and rivers as it would cause contamination. The knowledge partners organized by NDTV addressed this fundamental issue.
maybe if a year back somebody told me that the international toilet day was linked with equality, dignity and gender violence and sanitation I would have rolled with laughter. But the exposure a year ago and working with the migrant workers have really opened my eyes to something larger.
I heard stories of villagers who want to send their daughters to school but the fact that there were no toilets and the trees had been cut off to widen the roads made them aware of the desperate need for toilets and trees.
On the flip side were elders who were psychologically comfortable doing their daily rituals in the open environment so they had bowel constriction when they had to use the toilets. Interestingly the resource person suggested roofless toilets and planting of trees, or keeping flower pots.
When we are dealing with the migrant labour and informal work force things take a different turn. In a supermarket or a mall there are staff toilets and toilets for the public, but in a village market, or construction site we have neither.
Some village markets have now come up with pay toilets but construction sites are still open. The workers have nowhere to ease themselves through their 10hrs of working. Neither do they have access to potable water unless they are carrying it.
It is easy to say that India as a nation has no sense of hygiene/dignity/whatever, to a certain extent yes, but if we do not provide the toilets where on earth are the people to go, they have to ease themselves so they will go into the shrubs if they are available or go in the open.
An year back I met a company that dealt with portable toilets, when we asked them why were these not used in places where temporary toilets were required, we were told
• Their initial costing is high
• They were western toilets and Indians were not comfortable using it.
By the way the company has come up with an Indian model this year. The waste was dealt with chemically so there was no odour emitted.
The sanitation maintenance people on the Indian railway have another thing to say. Yes, the train toilets are public places. The Indian railway has recently shifted to bio-cleansing toilet units, they put up signage’s to tell people not to throw their diapers, the sanitary towels and tissues down the toilet , yet people do so, particularly in the first class section which is supposed to occupied by the more educated aware citizens as opposed to the plebiscites of the sleeper class.
The international toilet day would be a great point to start an awareness drive, and toilet training—yes I use it deliberately because we need to learn how to use a public toilet, keep it clean and conserve resources.
https://wordpress.com/posts/parwatisingari.wordpress.com?s=NDTV
https://parwatisingari.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/sanitation-for-the-roadside-worker/
http://www.un.org/en/events/toiletday/
http://www.lifestyletodaynews.com/green-living/a-visit-to-one-of-the-weirdest-museums-in-the-world-the-toilet-museum/
Tag: safety
When the world falls apart
Home is where you go to find solace from the ever changing chaos, to find love within the confines of a heartless world, and to be reminded that no matter how far you wander, there will always be something waiting when you return.”
When My World Fell Apart
The first time I could not make it to the passing grade.
My ankle getting crushed in an accident…
My grandmother passing way
My father passing away
The crab threatening to visit the most precious person in my life.
Finally being burnt 40%
Each time it seemd like my world fell apart. There are other external factors too, when I seemed totally shattered. There were relationships crumbling, sometimes it was as if my physical environment was crumbling, there was time I could not put my finger on it, but it was as if the walls around me was crumbling and I was standing on nothing to lean on, exposed and vulnerable. But looking back these were the times that gave me the opportunity to see where I had established my sense of identity, safety and well-being. Many times during the process I did locate my sense of self in externals, each time these external factors shifted I had the opportunity to rediscover and move closer to my core until it dawned that was the only truly safe place to call home.
Maybe it takes falling apart to see exactly how or what loosened the mortar, because, sometimes I found I was responsible for the how and the what, it was unpleasant as it is when it happened. One cannot help but appreciate these times for what lessons one learns. Of course this is only half the battle, no; it means you have begun…
It also dawned that the core of our being is not really effected by the shifting winds of circumstances, nor does it is subject to the cycle of change that govern physical reality. It is as steady or consistent as the sun, which is why the great mystics and mystical poets often reference the sun in their odes to the self.
Like the sun, there are times when our core seems so inaccessible to us, this is just a misperception. We know that when the sun goes behind the cloud or sets for the night, it is just temporarily out of sight. In the same way, we can trust that our inner is always shining brightly, even when we cannot see it.
This core is something we can cling to when things around us are falling apart, knowing that an inexhaustible light shines from within ourselves. The times of external darkness can be a great gift in that they provide an opportunity to remember this inner light that shines regardless of the circumstances of our lives. As our external lives begin to come back together we are able to lean a little more lightly on the structure we used to call home, knowing more clearly than ever that our true home is that bright sun shining in our core.
“…I’d come home but nearly everybody does. It’s the ones that don’t go home that I feel sorry for, they’re not happy.”
― Laura Marney, No Wonder I Take A Drink
