A foreign couple – of course, they're white! – arrive at the airport exit gate, having just got off an airplane. As they board a car that is waiting for them, an Indian boarding the car parked next to them spits out paan. The spit barely misses Mr. Tourist. The Indian raises a perfunctory half-apologetic hand before driving away.
Not long after, the couple, in their car, are riding the Bandra-Worli sea link, and our eager Ms.Tourist is sticking her head out of the rear passenger window, trying to soak in India's sights and sounds. Unsurprisingly, she is also taking pictures with a camera. Suddenly, disaster strikes. A school bus overtakes their car, and as the bus goes past them, someone tosses out a banana peel from one of the bus's windows. As rotten luck would have it, the peel lands right on the photography enthusiast.
Not long after, the couple, in their car, are riding the Bandra-Worli sea link, and our eager Ms.Tourist is sticking her head out of the rear passenger window, trying to soak in India's sights and sounds. Unsurprisingly, she is also taking pictures with a camera. Suddenly, disaster strikes. A school bus overtakes their car, and as the bus goes past them, someone tosses out a banana peel from one of the bus's windows. As rotten luck would have it, the peel lands right on the photography enthusiast.
Then, a car that moments ago had rashly sped past them has pulled over. As the tourists pass the once rogue but now stationary vehicle, Mr.Tourist looks out the window presumably wondering what is going on. To his horror, he sees a little boy being led to the edge of the road, and the boy prepares to take a wee. What a shame!
This three-part act is from an advertisement that exhorts us to not mar the image of India in the eyes of tourists from foreign lands. It, undeniably, means well. Yet, there is possibly something amiss in this indictment of the indifferent Indian.
Spitting paan and discarding a banana peel on the street are eminently voluntary acts. They may be impulsive acts, but they can be averted with sufficient awareness – something that the advertisement aims to achieve. But, voiding one's bladder, after a point on the tolerance curve, has little to do with the will or whim of the human mind, and is transformed into a biological diktat beyond appeal. I wonder how many public toilets have been built on the Bandra-Worli sea link. Perhaps our tourist couple had, dutifully adhering to the counsel peddled on blogs, repaired to the restroom at the airport in preparation for the testing time ahead.
Closer home, it's a three-hour drive from Bangalore to Mysore via SH-17. Mysore indeed is a popular destination with the tourists, and SH-17 also acts as the feeder to NH-212, the road that leads to Bandipur and Mudumalai national parks, as well as Wayanad. SH-17 also carries traffic towards Coorg. A testament to the ever-rising number of commuters using SH-17 is the sprouting of restaurants, pizzerias, and cafes along the highway. And on holidays, many of these eateries are packed with patrons.
I am regular user of the highway, too. To me, as in the case of many others dislodged from Mysore on account of employment, SH-17 is the road that takes me home. And a sizeable stream of cars and buses transport Mysoreans on this road at the onset of every weekend, and a lot of the cars stop at the aforementioned food places. These Mysoreans, who are coming home, could they possibly suffer from intense hunger pangs during a relatively short, three-hour journey? Pangs which are too intense for a chocolate bar or a few biscuits? The answer, of course, is no.
While eateries have sprung up and continue to do so, most of their patrons aren't drawn by their menus but a more crucial service they offer: the access to serviceable toilets. And in keeping with propriety, people order – at the very least – an exorbitantly priced cup of coffee, contributing towards keeping the establishment in business and the toilets serviceable for their next visit. The appalling absence of public toilets along this much-touted four-lane highway actually ensures a high footfall in these restaurants. No, I'm not hinting at crony capitalism or politico-entrepreneurial nexus, but at the nefarious negligence of a very basic need on a highway that, if rumors are true, is soon to be widened further. Imagine the predicament of our athithi devo bhava as he/she courses through SH-17 when the eateries are shut.
Along Bangalore's fabled IT corridor, we witness economic upward mobility firsthand: everyone you can espy is on a call – some scream into the bottom of their phones where the microphone is, some pull the microphones of their supposed-to-be hands-free gear to their mouths, while still others just answer nature's call. And unlike the former two kinds of callers who are prone to jaywalking in traffic, the latter are confined to the roadside. Also, the IT corridor is not peppered with eateries that serve as facades for well-appointed toilets. I am almost certain that the number of watering holes in Bangalore is a multiple of the number of public toilets, and in trying not to be pessimistic, I am hoping that the multiplication factor is a single digit. You might have an iPhone in your pocket, a few debit/credit cards in your wallet, and a laptop in your backpack, but you cannot curse the lad relieving himself on the roadside. One day, it could be you. Is this the liberalization panelists are going on and on about? Didn't we have it always? You still pray for the government's mercy and are prey for their apathy. The flipside of this trauma, of course, is that employees prize the restrooms at their workplace and count it among the perks for their service.
Recently, we have had a deluge of columns and write-ups bemoaning the lack of sanitation in rural India, even going so far as to designate this lack as the root cause for the ghastly rapes of Badaun. Yes, most of the urban Indians have a toilet at home. But, to earn enough to afford that urban home, they spend much of their day outside of it, often commuting long distances to get to their workplace, their school or college, and back. And these hobos for a few hours include both women and children - ignoring the men as usual. To the urban Indian, too, coming home is a relief.
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