Years ago, when I was living in Delhi I always, invariably,
had one reflex action – that of bowing my head in front of temples, churches or
any places of worship. I am not religious but it’s perhaps a gesture of respect
for the places that are deemed sacred by others. Respect is a great virtue to
inculcate. Anyway, Delhi’s architecture is funny, you have dilapidated temples
(some under reconstruction) and you have state-of-the-art toilets which are
thankfully cropping up everywhere, you know the paid toilets where you can
always do the needful, if you can’t help it.
I was once passing by a Sulabh toilet and bowed my head
little realising it was a newly inaugurated toilet. Ever heard of anyone paying
obeisance to a toilet! And for those who don’t know, Sulabh is an India-based
social service organisation that works to promote human rights, environmental
sanitation, et al.
But toilets bring a lot more funnier memories. My early
memories of toilet in my hill town Shillong in north-eastern India was of this
wooden one. Well, almost every cottage had a toilet outside the house. It was
unique in every sense. It was like a proper elevated box. You had to climb on
top of it and underneath it was a huge bucket. Every two/three days, an old man
from the Jamadar colony from Gora Lines (the colony is called by that name
because most of the community of toilet cleaners who lived there) used to come
and empty it. As a curious eight-year old, I followed the Jamadar one day. The
unsuspecting man lugged the bucket to one end of the compound, emptied it into
a pit he had dug up near the walls, then wiped his hands with grass, smoked a
cigarette and walked back to place the bucket where it was. Job over, he moved
to the next house to carry on his routine work for the day. If anyone was to
study the evolution of toilets, there are some reference points here.
Years later, working as a rookie journalist in Delhi, I wrote
about the evolution of public toilets. So, when I was called for an interview
for a Chevening scholarship I had applied, the panel of interviewers chose to
begin by asking me about that particular article. I had to begin by explaining
that my visit to one of the largest bus terminals in Delhi, where half the
population urinated in the open air, forced me to write about toilets and raise
the question of why we couldn’t have clean, public toilets so that everyone was
spared the sight and stench of open urinals. For once, I had a problem sitting
through an entire interview.
But more recent is a toilet story from Melbourne when I
newly moved into the city. There used to be an Indian shop in Rosanna where I
lived initially. The business has since shut shop. But those days it used to be
one of my regular haunts and the lady (let’s call her Meera) who owned the shop was quite a repository of news and
gossips. I loved them all.
Meera dealt with a major chunk of Indian customers on a
daily basis, so she had plenty of stories to tell. And this one of a south
Indian Tamil boy working as a toilet cleaner in Royal Melbourne Hospital is one
that stands out in memory. Boy goes to India and sells himself as an
‘Environmental Officer’ in the marriage market. Of course, he fetches a bride
with impressive dowry – a two-storey building in prime location where he moves
his parents on the ground floor and rents out the first floor. A year later,
the bride is ready with her papers and about to land in Australia and
environmental officer is in panic mode. He tells Meera, “She is coming, I need
a better job soon.” Now, I wish I knew the rest of the story but Meera has
moved suburbs.
Cut to the present. The toilet paper crisis in Melbourne is
making me laugh. You see, there are some things to like about the coronavirus
because it makes you laugh. Although, before I go on, I think if people stopped
looking at their phones and WhatsApp or Facebook for at least a week, this
crisis could have been averted.
Now, coronavirus is a respiratory complaint, not a
gastronomical ailment. So where is the connection between toilet papers and
coronavirus? My friends have been calling up to find out if I am stocking up on
toilet papers because they feel like it’s the apocalypse. Seriously.
Thankfully, I have a few rolls but I am starting to worry
now as I am told most shops don’t have them on display. But it is not like
Australia imports toilet papers. I am told Amazon also does not have them.
Someone, please give me the calculus between COVID19 and toilet papers. At this
rate, we might have to depend on the junk mails. It also does not help to have
a husband who is the least concerned even if a hurricane was headed our way! He
is definitely not part of the collective nervous breakdown.
I decipher two things out of this mayhem. One, people are so
stupid and that people are indeed selfish. There is no way that toilet papers
are going to save you from the coronavirus. If you read carefully, all you need
to do is wash your hands properly for 20 seconds. So, the one thing you should
be stocking up is soap with consideration for others because, again, it is no
good if others don’t have clean hands because the virus will travel to you.
The women fighting in a Sydney supermarket aisle made me
reflect on how selfish we have become. What is the harm in sharing a toilet
roll? Civilisation is indeed a thin veneer, it takes one toilet paper to bring
out the worst in us. We are going to kill each other when it comes to food and
water.
My friends, stay calm, drink wine. If you want to come over,
I have a simple request: bring over a toilet paper instead of wine. There was
and there is life before toilet paper.
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