Every time I come to India, I cannot help but think of V.S. Naipaul. Particularly when I tour the country, as I am doing now.
I am always prepared for the traffic, the noise, the pollution, and the airborne viruses in my native country. I can even tolerate the mosquitoes, the hard beds, the lack of privacy, and the religious fanaticism. But I am never ready for the filthy toilets. I cannot fathom why one of the most fundamental human needs is so very difficult to fulfill in India. Why a country that is obsessed with food cannot deal with its end products.
Mahatma Gandhi observed that Indians thought it was unclean to clean.
I think that was an understatement. Gandhi made a point of cleaning his own toilet but few Indians do that. In fact, Indians abhor going to the toilet. Therefore, they pay no attention to where they go or how they go. If, when desperate, they are forced to approach the facilities, they get into a trance that enables them not to notice the piles of human excrement in the stalls, or the lack of water or soap or cleanliness. They never see the rivers of urine flowing around them. Women draped in expensive saris and laden with kilos of gold screw up their faces, put their chiffons or silks to their noses, and after floating over urine and feces like swans floating on the surface of a pond, emerge out of the facilities smelling like roses.
How do they do it?
I, on the other hand, begin to fear that I have returned to my childhood. I am stuck in a nightmare in which I am running down a cobblestone alley covered in raw sewage, my sandaled toes barely missing the excrement, my feet crawling through the sludge.
As a child, I saw this daily. Even as a youngster of 5 or 6, I was conscious of the deprived lives of the children around me. Walking down the street, I used to see toddlers defecating by the roadside as they squabbled, and giggled, and threw rocks at one another, and I used to wonder, how did they do it? I, for one, could not.
I was hoping that things had changed. That now that India was such an economic powerhouse, it had figured out the most basic process of getting rid of human waste.
I was wrong.
Delhi was admittedly an improvement but, once I arrived in Pune, the situation seemed to deteriorate rapidly. Watching a play in the famous Balgandharva Ranga Mandir, it turned out, was hazardous to my health, for while the production was exquisite, the auditorium was barely inhabitable, and the bathrooms were designed to be used as a set for narak, the Hindu hell.
Alas, during a three-hour production, it was impossible to survive without using the ladies’ bathroom. One stall had piles of excrement, I discovered, another was flooded with urine and human waste. Of the other two barely usable stalls, one was a Western-style commode without a seat, the other was Indian style. Since Indian toilets NEVER have any toilet paper, and because it is impossible to use toilet paper with Indian toilets in any case—because of their inability to flush it—one had to wash oneself with one’s hand—only if the water was running of course. The problem was that the sinks outside were piled with God only knew what. And needless to say, there was no water in the taps or soap by the sink. Not even a bottle of hand sanitizer was available.
If this was the situation in a location that is supposedly the pinnacle of Pune’s intellectual snobbery, you can just envision the conditions in its bus depot or its railway station. I had the misfortune of witnessing them 25 years ago while traveling with my British husband. Nothing has changed in the intervening quarter century, I am told.
If this is the situation in one of India’s high-tech, educational and cultural centers, what are other towns and cities like, I wonder.
To say that I am disgusted with Indians’ disregard for hygiene would be an understatement. I am outraged. I am hysterical with disbelief. I am appalled. I want to puke. I want to go to the mayor of Pune and tell him that he should be fired.
When I complained to my friend about the conditions at the theater, she informed me that it is run by the Pune Corporation and therefore impossible to change. Being an activist, she has already tried. She has given interviews to newspapers. She is a BJP official, and she has talked to politicians. But the country’s apathy is so monumental, it is impossible to effect change.
So once again, I am left musing, why is it that even countries such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Thailand, and Indonesia have spotless toilets? Why is it that as a society, they can work together, but we cannot? Why is it that they can organize things but we prefer to live in chaos?
While traveling to Ajanta and Ellora, my cousin mentioned that many Hindus prefer not to visit a temple after going to the toilet. Indian toilets are so pathetic, I wanted to respond, that after visiting them, one is unable to contemplate a temple, or a meal, or, for that matter, life itself.
No wonder diseases such as amoebic dysentery and hepatitis are so common in India.
V.S. Naipaul was right when he labeled India an area of darkness. And the situation is only getting worse.
Of course Indians find easy excuses for their filth. Population is a popular culprit these days. Corruption is another excuse. Lack of money is also given as a reason.
But the real causes of India’s filth are much more endemic to its religion and culture. Brahmins traditionally used bhangis—the untouchable toilet cleaners—to do their dirty work. They never once touched a toilet themselves. And they still don’t.
Predictably, the people who traditionally performed such manual tasks felt so resentful that they purposefully left the waste behind. They still do.
Can you blame them?
How can we change things? Perhaps by starting a movement called “Let’s Hug the Toilets,” or something along those lines? A movement in which every day, battalions of citizens approach public toilets and perform seva, or service, until they are so clean, you can eat out of them.
Only then can India be called a civilized society. Or even a civilization. Until then India is a desert filled with human waste, a land of cancer, a blight on the human race.
Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com
Comments
I've heard that many of the toilet cleaners in the North are Brahmins, especially in Delhi. So I'm rather unsure about this idea that Brahmins still don't clean the toilets.
By Ahalya
• December 16, 2011, 4:33 a.m.
It has been more than three years since I moved to Chennai, India. I am still unable to come to terms with all the filth littered everywhere. One of my pet peeves is the painting of the city walls with beautiful scenes - right next to piles of garbage. Doesn't it make sense to clean up first and then decorate ?
By Anonymous
• December 16, 2011, 6:06 a.m.
You are so dead on Sarita. Reading this article made me quiver as I embark on another trip to the subcontinent
this Christmas season. Guess somethings don't change!
By Anonymous from NJ
• December 16, 2011, 8:50 a.m.
I wonder why somebody associated with KQED will put up such a blatantly racist argument. Or even a mathematically incoherent one.
Brahmins for what, 2% of the country's population....is the crap you see in the stalls produced only by 2% of the population? How about shudras who form the bulk of the population and are the ruling class in india today? Are their toilets spotless? Why bring Brahmins into this? And why do you lie?
And I'm curious about the nationality of your husband....does he being british have anything to do with toilets? Did I miss a connection? Or is this your slip to being a classic gunga din? Maybe that explains the rest of your article.
By fact ignore
• December 16, 2011, 9:11 a.m.
this is so typical in its myopic embrace of modernity..why do you even toilet paper? that is such a created demand!
if you would like to deride other indians for being unwilling to be in the proximity of shit as it were, you should take a good look at your self and examine why you wouldn't douche with merely water and your humble hands as the majority of the world does.
and incidentally, compost toilets are where it's at. if you really want to invoke gandhi, go all the way - embrace his philosophy of completing the metabolic cycle which replenishes the soil and isn't reliant on a profligate water intensive plumbing system. your centrist, moderate conformity pro-modernity makes me sick. there's a lot to be critical of india about, but you need to stay on point.
you also need to read some partha chatterjee and kamal kar.
where is the indian malcolm x? damn.
By d.r.i
• December 16, 2011, 9:54 a.m.
Stop arguing about these useless things, education is the topic India should focus on. 2009 PISA result from two Indian states (Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh) was release today.
Link: http://www.moneylife.in/business-wire-news/acer-releases-tamil-nadu-india-results-of-pisa-2009-participant-economies/29496.html
The result is so bad, it pain me to even mention it, just check it out yourself, wake up India!!!!!!
By JVC
• December 16, 2011, 9:43 p.m.
Hi Sarita ,
You have written the words from my mouth .....
I am a very patriotic Indian but I have to call a spade a spade . Believe me when ever I travel, my biggest nightmare is where would I go to the toilet or if there would be a decent toilet within reach . I promise my own cafe in Ooty will have a clean toilet where tourists can heave a sigh of relief!
I once read a message in a toilet in Singapore that stuck in my head .... it read something like " the character of a country is known by the way it keeps it's public toilets " I thought , why only a country, even an individual ? Strange how the oldest civilization is totally uncivilized !
incidentally, In my factory in Bangalore each employee was made to clean the toilets in turn including myself !
but what else can you expect from the garbage queen of Bangalore ?
By Diana Bharucha
• December 16, 2011, 10:15 p.m.
Sarita, i hope just to make a point you were exaggerating a bit.
I have not been to India (I am from Kenya) but I have been longing to visit.
Now I wonder...
By Akram
• December 17, 2011, 4:03 p.m.
Sarita might have exaggerated a bit to make a point. It is called a writers' license.
I feel to be so graphic was not necessary. But, sometimes an over-correction is needed to bring something back to balance.
I feel we as a race lack a little Community Spirit. We have pretty clean homes but both in the USA and in Canada, I have noticed we mess up the washrooms in hotels and halls when we attend as a group any large function.
Being honest to ourselves and accepting the truth is the first step towards rectifying this part of our growth.
Sarita, keep it up.
By Akram
• December 18, 2011, 12:02 p.m.
Again, Sarita Behn has created a wonderful word-picture of Naipaulesque India. This one's the best:
Women draped in expensive saris and laden with kilos of gold screw up their faces, put their chiffons or silks to their noses, and after floating over urine and feces like swans floating on the surface of a pond, emerge out of the facilities smelling like roses.
Are we do conceive of an Indian ballet called the "Marwari Swans" now?
Ok, cut to the V.S. Naipaul part: Sure Naipaul traveled to India in 1962 with his "British" wife, and Sarita retraces his steps and returns to India, the question is does she have her British husband in tow? She had one, 25 years earlier she says.
Feces is one of the things that Naipaul associates with the post Independent India, but what he deplores more is not simply an inability to be outraged by the surrounding filth, but the intellectual vacuity in the so-called elite class. Indian elites then and now don't quite care for India--they let the filth pile up while they themselves revel in opportunities. That's what cripples India according to Naipaul--lack of the empowered classes empathy for their nation.
The intellectual and ethical feces pile up as well.
By Sharmila Mukherjee
• December 18, 2011, 6:19 p.m.
Welcome to my world (of awareness and understanding), and won't you come on in and face the music (of defensiveness and criticisms that you will unfortunately face when you tell the truth).
Miracles I guess is what these people are waiting for: someone out there to come and solve "their" problems. Indian psychology is to "cope, adapt and accept", or find "1001 creative or cunning ways to maneuver or manipulate the system".
Step into my heart of "concern and aching" where idiots and survivalists merely find ways to escape "psychologically or physically".
I am a Brahmin but I fully agree with you. Lets add to this category of "upper caste" elites the Forward Castes of India as well (the Rajas and the Maha rajas). All of them are the 20% elite morons who could not defend their own land, resources and people (who served them devotedly). But they demand, command and dictate. Unchallenged power, privilege and authority over centuries has given these elite arrogant idiots, who have primarily inherited their power through birth and biology, or through cronyism, nepotism and sycophancy, too much ego without action, ethics, humanity or accountability. But they'll advice their women on how to cook, clean and wipe their backsides.
Go Sarita...and do not be surprised if you start getting rape and death threats. I got them twenty years ago when even the word harassment and stalking did not exist in the books.
America should not feel so smug! The inner city neglect is now becoming a "mainstream issue". Go see the toilet in many public schools in the US or in public places! It is shocking and public health officials are worried that bacterial and viral infections once deemed "Third World" has come to the American cities.
Now please stand up and sing the national anthem of your respective countries, and salute your military as they hold on to their stomach with diarrhea! :))
We sure have our priorities right around the world!!! :))
By MS
• December 19, 2011, 11:02 a.m.
Most Indians were focused on polishing the boots of the colonialists and the elites than cleaning their toilet. While one country needs to start cleaning its toilets, another needs to start cleaning its soul. Tell me which is easier to learn and do? Keep reading!
While the US has gone to the other extreme (of literally oppressing people's basic civil and human rights in the name of national security), India has no basic order, (beyond its feudal family or village order), unity and an intelligent intuitive way of solving its basic problems.
A functioning democracy, that does not just look good on paper and is more than a mere election ritual (every few years), requires the highest of "intelligence, intuition, social insights, participatory input, integrity, integrated action and involved unity". Most Indians take their democracy for granted...even though amazing women and men suffered and sacrificed for freedom against colonialism and tyranny.
Even the growing muddled middle class with degrees up their wazoo are more interested in "quick or big money through business" and "crony capitalism and corruption". Who in India is interested in "long term progress, social change and 'community' before narrow family priorities or economic survivalism"?
Indians are always waiting for someone else to come and fix "their problems". They are not good to their teachers (at least Brahmins valued education and pursuit of knowledge beyond narrow economic priorities), their social workers, leaders who want to do "something different or better" and their applied scientists.
"Community Action", though it might be imperfect, hasty or hesitant, is not well encouraged in many Indian families - beyond "doing what is economically convenient, or following the beaten path".
Planned coordinated actions (intelligent, relevant and pressing) that help create and implement reliable regulations and institutions that serve and protect people, as well as create the necessary law and order (that is not about control as it is in the US, but about basic protection and fair promotion), has not been an Indian forte for a long time.
Indian social psychology has been damaged and destroyed, bashed and battered, mauled and moulded, and impacted and influenced (negatively of course) by old feudal classism, heirarchies and sexism ; more than a thousand years of foreign invasion, occupation and conversions ; and then five hundred years of colonial domination, dictates and oppression.
If you are a strong woman, with a determination to do something for and in the community, you'd be the first to be attacked by men and women in your own family, culture and community. How long can you survive and succeed in such an environment?
India is the only country that stupidly sends off its smartest, brightest and its most daring to the world...while it defecates in its own pit perpetually. Why? Because patriarchal morons, who are part of a clueless but arrogant crony elite communities, rule business and the government.
The political motto should be, "Cooperate and start doing something for the community...or get out!". India cannot afford democracy and globalization with this level of "stupidity, disunity, ignorance and elite arrogance".
Indians are trying to borrow and mimick from other countries, especially Western societies, without the proper foundation, awareness of their own history and heritage (and its unique strengths and weaknesses), and without unity (beyond its silly "isms": like sexism, classism, cronyism, elitism, colonialism...).
Look how much I have given to the US...but the US has given very little. It has taken the best from me without a lot of reciprocity. Why? Because we let them, because we do not know how to protect ourselves and we do not have unity. Why else would a woman with my level of awareness and sensitivity be constantly brought down by morons in this country who combine ignorance with arrogance and aggression? (Look at who runs for the highest office in this country?). Why? Because we let them, and our community knows only how to polish boots and tell their women to "stay in their places".
Thank goodness there is change occuring. Though not fast enough for me...at least there is an awakening!
By MS
• December 20, 2011, 4:26 a.m.
Wow, Ms. "MS", you sound like an angry woman. You say you received "rape" and "death" threats 20 years ago for telling the "truth"? Who might you be? I wonder. We at least have our names in full display here. But you hide behind an "MS" and expect others to come out?
But pallus off to you Ma'm (guessing your gender here as you received rape threats you say) for writing so much.
No sooner than Sarita Behn sneezes her anti-corruption sneeze, you come out with oodles of anti-oppression rants.
What a lovely pair!
Truly
By Sharmila Mukherjee
• December 29, 2011, 11:24 a.m.
Sharmila,
What an inconsiderate awful human being you are! I hope you do receive rape and murder threats...as morons like you only learn with experience. It is women like you who seem to lack class, consideration and compassion! I did not personalize any of my comments. And yet you personalized it against me! You remind me of those highly conditioned women who are cruel to women but stretch their smile and what else at men who pay their bills and get them a new saree. With women like that no wonder some countries get colonized, terrorized and constantly fall behind. Kindly stay where you are! Developing countries can do without you!
By Dr.MS
• January 2, 2012, 10:36 p.m.
There is a solution in sight to the dirty urinal, but the problem is whether it can be scaled to meet the needs of the masses in india or not. At the 2012 Suraj Kund Craft Mela, there was an e-toilet. An e-toilet is electronically monitored to be kept clean for use. Public toilets are always messy and avoidable, but this unique solution is intriguing although it uses up more water than may be available in most parts of the country. A fellow monitored the queue, collected the coins that fed the automatically timed access door, which must be synchronized with a slight delay following the inner door that the user operates. Between each user, there is a 30 second delay when the steel interior is flushed automatically to maintain it. The electronic monitoring was simply that, and it was, as everything else in India, mediated with a human being in-charge.
By jyoti
• February 21, 2012, 11:35 a.m.
Why don't you change it? I have lived abroad for more than thrity years. I grew up in an upper class family...and had plenty of assitants. Yet I don't make the kind of cruel comments that many of you, sitting in Silicon Valley with a marginal American identity, that does not go beyond a California or a city space, make!
Try leaving your narrow space and see how you are treated outside your environment? Much of you are an outcaste in the US anyway! So, instead of holding your noses like some "rags to riches" out of control devis and devas do something: provide proper education or shut up!
My Anglo husband will probably insult you, and yet people like you will stretch your smile like "colonized servants" while insulting me. I've seen that with many of you!
As they say, "If you have never had much, and suddenly you get a few thousand dollars...it goes to the head too quickly!"
Sarita..are you really an American? Many outside Cal will not think so! Sorry!
By Sanny
• February 21, 2012, 1:51 p.m.
Sanny, no need to question Sarita's Americanness. There are many ways to be American, and I resent people with thirty year American identity looking down on someone with a five or ten year American experience.
I saw that in Cal :with naturalized citizens looking down on green card holders looking down on temporary workers looking down on international students....So petty! It is like Cal attracts all these people who do well in their studies and work, but do poorly in overcoming their "isms"...old and new! They don't evolve in other ways!
But how does an American, natural or naturalized, obsess about another country? Its like Americans going to Europe and making loud rude comments about Europeans. They are not going to be liked for it, and they are going to criticize obnoxious Americans or other visitors. So, Ms. Sarita (I do not know how to spell your strange last name, as Americans say)...stop giving Americans a bad name!
Should Sarita not, as an American, travel across the US and give her opinions about her country...the United States. There are kids in Mississippi who don't get enough food. There are Latino American families suffering from infectious diseases and malnourishment. There are Blacks and people of color citizens whose voting rights are being suppressed. There are Muslims in the US who are being followed and spied on. There are poor White workers whose collective bargaining rights are being taken away in the Midwest. There are Native Indians who are forced to give up their heritage. Fish in Vermont is showing up with radioactive chemicals. What does Ms. Sarita talk about...?Some stinky bathrooms abroad.
Has Sareeta been to some of our public schools and public places around her country? Kids are forced to study in toxic schools with stinky environments - including bad bathrooms.What does Sarita talk about: stinky bathrooms in a poor country!
Ms. Sarita...you are an American (though of Indian descent). Please act and write with "manners and sensitivity". You are giving Americans and Indian Americans a bad name.
I call upon Ms. Sarita to travel across the US and run for office in Alabama or Idaho! :))
I did like the article on Thai food. I grew up in Thailand, and went to International Schoolm Bangkok. Kopun Ka for that article!
By Dr.MS
• February 21, 2012, 4:50 p.m.
Sarita
How right you are about the state of monumental filth that is urban and rural India. I have travelled widely in S. America and Eastern Europe and nowhere is there a place without public facilities maintained by government and kept clean and usable. Most recently I was in Ecuador not a so called developed country but by paying a mere one US cent one can use fine facilities. Indians have to take complete blame for this atrocious state of hygiene and they cannot just use population, illiteracy, or lack of funds. Yes, official corruption is shameful, thanks to people like Mayawati and a host of others, but what are the great moneyed people of Bollywood doing for the country; they have the wealth to move India in the right direction.
By Byravan Viswanathan
• February 22, 2012, 8:50 a.m.
Why don't you do something, in stead of leaving it to movie stars? After all, many of you are the ones who watch copious amount of Bollywood movies and cricket! In stead of complaining about a country you neither belong to, nor really care about, except to escape (with a third rate attitude), you might want to stay in "El Cerrito California, Ecuador, Estonia, Eue de Cologne island".
Good luck! I hope all this provocation kept you feeling good or great...without solving a single issue. I, at least, spend my time educating people...or improving their thinking, knowledge and/or their social conscience.
Enjoy your toilets, or your toilet thinking!
By David
• February 22, 2012, 11:42 a.m.
It was most interesting to read the numerous commentaries to Sarita's article vis a vis Naipaul's India. The one from dri was silly and personal. I know many Indian Americans who get all worked up even if legitimate criticism is made of that society. Understanding one's drawbacks is the first step to improvement. If even that first step is not taken everything will stay the same. India is today largely the same as it was in the fifties, sixties, seventies and into the 21st. century. In 2011 our trip from Delhi to Chennai by the prestigious Rajdhani Express was deplorable because of the very dirty toilets all made so by passengers who I believe belonged to the upper class. Garbage collection does not exist in most of India but was there in 13th. century France. I really fear for India's future. It seems that country can go on only if an outside force is imposed upon it. Churchill did express doubts if Indians can run their own affairs and it is being proven right. It is a really "Wounded Civilization" per Naipaul.
By Byravan Viswanathan
• February 22, 2012, 12:27 p.m.
Yet, East Indians in Guyana (my homeland) and Trinidad (Naipaul's homeland) are among the cleanest people that I know. Muslims and Hindus in Guyana don't even wear shoes in their houses. Our toilets are spotless and even when we use to have latrines, it was always clean. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, especially those who recently migrates to North America.
By MohRah
• March 20, 2012, 8:48 a.m.
Comments
I've heard that many of the toilet cleaners in the North are Brahmins, especially in Delhi. So I'm rather unsure about this idea that Brahmins still don't clean the toilets.
It has been more than three years since I moved to Chennai, India. I am still unable to come to terms with all the filth littered everywhere. One of my pet peeves is the painting of the city walls with beautiful scenes - right next to piles of garbage. Doesn't it make sense to clean up first and then decorate ?
You are so dead on Sarita. Reading this article made me quiver as I embark on another trip to the subcontinent this Christmas season. Guess somethings don't change!
I wonder why somebody associated with KQED will put up such a blatantly racist argument. Or even a mathematically incoherent one.
Brahmins for what, 2% of the country's population....is the crap you see in the stalls produced only by 2% of the population? How about shudras who form the bulk of the population and are the ruling class in india today? Are their toilets spotless? Why bring Brahmins into this? And why do you lie?
And I'm curious about the nationality of your husband....does he being british have anything to do with toilets? Did I miss a connection? Or is this your slip to being a classic gunga din? Maybe that explains the rest of your article.
this is so typical in its myopic embrace of modernity..why do you even toilet paper? that is such a created demand!
if you would like to deride other indians for being unwilling to be in the proximity of shit as it were, you should take a good look at your self and examine why you wouldn't douche with merely water and your humble hands as the majority of the world does.
and incidentally, compost toilets are where it's at. if you really want to invoke gandhi, go all the way - embrace his philosophy of completing the metabolic cycle which replenishes the soil and isn't reliant on a profligate water intensive plumbing system. your centrist, moderate conformity pro-modernity makes me sick. there's a lot to be critical of india about, but you need to stay on point.
you also need to read some partha chatterjee and kamal kar.
where is the indian malcolm x? damn.
Stop arguing about these useless things, education is the topic India should focus on. 2009 PISA result from two Indian states (Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh) was release today. Link: http://www.moneylife.in/business-wire-news/acer-releases-tamil-nadu-india-results-of-pisa-2009-participant-economies/29496.html
The result is so bad, it pain me to even mention it, just check it out yourself, wake up India!!!!!!
Hi Sarita , You have written the words from my mouth ..... I am a very patriotic Indian but I have to call a spade a spade . Believe me when ever I travel, my biggest nightmare is where would I go to the toilet or if there would be a decent toilet within reach . I promise my own cafe in Ooty will have a clean toilet where tourists can heave a sigh of relief! I once read a message in a toilet in Singapore that stuck in my head .... it read something like " the character of a country is known by the way it keeps it's public toilets " I thought , why only a country, even an individual ? Strange how the oldest civilization is totally uncivilized !
incidentally, In my factory in Bangalore each employee was made to clean the toilets in turn including myself ! but what else can you expect from the garbage queen of Bangalore ?
Sarita, i hope just to make a point you were exaggerating a bit. I have not been to India (I am from Kenya) but I have been longing to visit. Now I wonder...
Sarita might have exaggerated a bit to make a point. It is called a writers' license. I feel to be so graphic was not necessary. But, sometimes an over-correction is needed to bring something back to balance. I feel we as a race lack a little Community Spirit. We have pretty clean homes but both in the USA and in Canada, I have noticed we mess up the washrooms in hotels and halls when we attend as a group any large function. Being honest to ourselves and accepting the truth is the first step towards rectifying this part of our growth. Sarita, keep it up.
Again, Sarita Behn has created a wonderful word-picture of Naipaulesque India. This one's the best:
Women draped in expensive saris and laden with kilos of gold screw up their faces, put their chiffons or silks to their noses, and after floating over urine and feces like swans floating on the surface of a pond, emerge out of the facilities smelling like roses.
Are we do conceive of an Indian ballet called the "Marwari Swans" now?
Ok, cut to the V.S. Naipaul part: Sure Naipaul traveled to India in 1962 with his "British" wife, and Sarita retraces his steps and returns to India, the question is does she have her British husband in tow? She had one, 25 years earlier she says.
Feces is one of the things that Naipaul associates with the post Independent India, but what he deplores more is not simply an inability to be outraged by the surrounding filth, but the intellectual vacuity in the so-called elite class. Indian elites then and now don't quite care for India--they let the filth pile up while they themselves revel in opportunities. That's what cripples India according to Naipaul--lack of the empowered classes empathy for their nation.
The intellectual and ethical feces pile up as well.
Welcome to my world (of awareness and understanding), and won't you come on in and face the music (of defensiveness and criticisms that you will unfortunately face when you tell the truth).
Miracles I guess is what these people are waiting for: someone out there to come and solve "their" problems. Indian psychology is to "cope, adapt and accept", or find "1001 creative or cunning ways to maneuver or manipulate the system".
Step into my heart of "concern and aching" where idiots and survivalists merely find ways to escape "psychologically or physically".
I am a Brahmin but I fully agree with you. Lets add to this category of "upper caste" elites the Forward Castes of India as well (the Rajas and the Maha rajas). All of them are the 20% elite morons who could not defend their own land, resources and people (who served them devotedly). But they demand, command and dictate. Unchallenged power, privilege and authority over centuries has given these elite arrogant idiots, who have primarily inherited their power through birth and biology, or through cronyism, nepotism and sycophancy, too much ego without action, ethics, humanity or accountability. But they'll advice their women on how to cook, clean and wipe their backsides.
Go Sarita...and do not be surprised if you start getting rape and death threats. I got them twenty years ago when even the word harassment and stalking did not exist in the books.
America should not feel so smug! The inner city neglect is now becoming a "mainstream issue". Go see the toilet in many public schools in the US or in public places! It is shocking and public health officials are worried that bacterial and viral infections once deemed "Third World" has come to the American cities.
Now please stand up and sing the national anthem of your respective countries, and salute your military as they hold on to their stomach with diarrhea! :))
We sure have our priorities right around the world!!! :))
Most Indians were focused on polishing the boots of the colonialists and the elites than cleaning their toilet. While one country needs to start cleaning its toilets, another needs to start cleaning its soul. Tell me which is easier to learn and do? Keep reading!
While the US has gone to the other extreme (of literally oppressing people's basic civil and human rights in the name of national security), India has no basic order, (beyond its feudal family or village order), unity and an intelligent intuitive way of solving its basic problems.
A functioning democracy, that does not just look good on paper and is more than a mere election ritual (every few years), requires the highest of "intelligence, intuition, social insights, participatory input, integrity, integrated action and involved unity". Most Indians take their democracy for granted...even though amazing women and men suffered and sacrificed for freedom against colonialism and tyranny.
Even the growing muddled middle class with degrees up their wazoo are more interested in "quick or big money through business" and "crony capitalism and corruption". Who in India is interested in "long term progress, social change and 'community' before narrow family priorities or economic survivalism"?
Indians are always waiting for someone else to come and fix "their problems". They are not good to their teachers (at least Brahmins valued education and pursuit of knowledge beyond narrow economic priorities), their social workers, leaders who want to do "something different or better" and their applied scientists.
"Community Action", though it might be imperfect, hasty or hesitant, is not well encouraged in many Indian families - beyond "doing what is economically convenient, or following the beaten path".
Planned coordinated actions (intelligent, relevant and pressing) that help create and implement reliable regulations and institutions that serve and protect people, as well as create the necessary law and order (that is not about control as it is in the US, but about basic protection and fair promotion), has not been an Indian forte for a long time.
Indian social psychology has been damaged and destroyed, bashed and battered, mauled and moulded, and impacted and influenced (negatively of course) by old feudal classism, heirarchies and sexism ; more than a thousand years of foreign invasion, occupation and conversions ; and then five hundred years of colonial domination, dictates and oppression.
If you are a strong woman, with a determination to do something for and in the community, you'd be the first to be attacked by men and women in your own family, culture and community. How long can you survive and succeed in such an environment?
India is the only country that stupidly sends off its smartest, brightest and its most daring to the world...while it defecates in its own pit perpetually. Why? Because patriarchal morons, who are part of a clueless but arrogant crony elite communities, rule business and the government.
The political motto should be, "Cooperate and start doing something for the community...or get out!". India cannot afford democracy and globalization with this level of "stupidity, disunity, ignorance and elite arrogance".
Indians are trying to borrow and mimick from other countries, especially Western societies, without the proper foundation, awareness of their own history and heritage (and its unique strengths and weaknesses), and without unity (beyond its silly "isms": like sexism, classism, cronyism, elitism, colonialism...).
Look how much I have given to the US...but the US has given very little. It has taken the best from me without a lot of reciprocity. Why? Because we let them, because we do not know how to protect ourselves and we do not have unity. Why else would a woman with my level of awareness and sensitivity be constantly brought down by morons in this country who combine ignorance with arrogance and aggression? (Look at who runs for the highest office in this country?). Why? Because we let them, and our community knows only how to polish boots and tell their women to "stay in their places".
Thank goodness there is change occuring. Though not fast enough for me...at least there is an awakening!
Wow, Ms. "MS", you sound like an angry woman. You say you received "rape" and "death" threats 20 years ago for telling the "truth"? Who might you be? I wonder. We at least have our names in full display here. But you hide behind an "MS" and expect others to come out?
But pallus off to you Ma'm (guessing your gender here as you received rape threats you say) for writing so much.
No sooner than Sarita Behn sneezes her anti-corruption sneeze, you come out with oodles of anti-oppression rants.
What a lovely pair!
Truly
Sharmila,
What an inconsiderate awful human being you are! I hope you do receive rape and murder threats...as morons like you only learn with experience. It is women like you who seem to lack class, consideration and compassion! I did not personalize any of my comments. And yet you personalized it against me! You remind me of those highly conditioned women who are cruel to women but stretch their smile and what else at men who pay their bills and get them a new saree. With women like that no wonder some countries get colonized, terrorized and constantly fall behind. Kindly stay where you are! Developing countries can do without you!
There is a solution in sight to the dirty urinal, but the problem is whether it can be scaled to meet the needs of the masses in india or not. At the 2012 Suraj Kund Craft Mela, there was an e-toilet. An e-toilet is electronically monitored to be kept clean for use. Public toilets are always messy and avoidable, but this unique solution is intriguing although it uses up more water than may be available in most parts of the country. A fellow monitored the queue, collected the coins that fed the automatically timed access door, which must be synchronized with a slight delay following the inner door that the user operates. Between each user, there is a 30 second delay when the steel interior is flushed automatically to maintain it. The electronic monitoring was simply that, and it was, as everything else in India, mediated with a human being in-charge.
Why don't you change it? I have lived abroad for more than thrity years. I grew up in an upper class family...and had plenty of assitants. Yet I don't make the kind of cruel comments that many of you, sitting in Silicon Valley with a marginal American identity, that does not go beyond a California or a city space, make!
Try leaving your narrow space and see how you are treated outside your environment? Much of you are an outcaste in the US anyway! So, instead of holding your noses like some "rags to riches" out of control devis and devas do something: provide proper education or shut up!
My Anglo husband will probably insult you, and yet people like you will stretch your smile like "colonized servants" while insulting me. I've seen that with many of you!
As they say, "If you have never had much, and suddenly you get a few thousand dollars...it goes to the head too quickly!"
Sarita..are you really an American? Many outside Cal will not think so! Sorry!
Sanny, no need to question Sarita's Americanness. There are many ways to be American, and I resent people with thirty year American identity looking down on someone with a five or ten year American experience.
I saw that in Cal :with naturalized citizens looking down on green card holders looking down on temporary workers looking down on international students....So petty! It is like Cal attracts all these people who do well in their studies and work, but do poorly in overcoming their "isms"...old and new! They don't evolve in other ways!
But how does an American, natural or naturalized, obsess about another country? Its like Americans going to Europe and making loud rude comments about Europeans. They are not going to be liked for it, and they are going to criticize obnoxious Americans or other visitors. So, Ms. Sarita (I do not know how to spell your strange last name, as Americans say)...stop giving Americans a bad name!
Should Sarita not, as an American, travel across the US and give her opinions about her country...the United States. There are kids in Mississippi who don't get enough food. There are Latino American families suffering from infectious diseases and malnourishment. There are Blacks and people of color citizens whose voting rights are being suppressed. There are Muslims in the US who are being followed and spied on. There are poor White workers whose collective bargaining rights are being taken away in the Midwest. There are Native Indians who are forced to give up their heritage. Fish in Vermont is showing up with radioactive chemicals. What does Ms. Sarita talk about...?Some stinky bathrooms abroad.
Has Sareeta been to some of our public schools and public places around her country? Kids are forced to study in toxic schools with stinky environments - including bad bathrooms.What does Sarita talk about: stinky bathrooms in a poor country!
Ms. Sarita...you are an American (though of Indian descent). Please act and write with "manners and sensitivity". You are giving Americans and Indian Americans a bad name.
I call upon Ms. Sarita to travel across the US and run for office in Alabama or Idaho! :))
I did like the article on Thai food. I grew up in Thailand, and went to International Schoolm Bangkok. Kopun Ka for that article!
Sarita How right you are about the state of monumental filth that is urban and rural India. I have travelled widely in S. America and Eastern Europe and nowhere is there a place without public facilities maintained by government and kept clean and usable. Most recently I was in Ecuador not a so called developed country but by paying a mere one US cent one can use fine facilities. Indians have to take complete blame for this atrocious state of hygiene and they cannot just use population, illiteracy, or lack of funds. Yes, official corruption is shameful, thanks to people like Mayawati and a host of others, but what are the great moneyed people of Bollywood doing for the country; they have the wealth to move India in the right direction.
Why don't you do something, in stead of leaving it to movie stars? After all, many of you are the ones who watch copious amount of Bollywood movies and cricket! In stead of complaining about a country you neither belong to, nor really care about, except to escape (with a third rate attitude), you might want to stay in "El Cerrito California, Ecuador, Estonia, Eue de Cologne island".
Good luck! I hope all this provocation kept you feeling good or great...without solving a single issue. I, at least, spend my time educating people...or improving their thinking, knowledge and/or their social conscience.
Enjoy your toilets, or your toilet thinking!
It was most interesting to read the numerous commentaries to Sarita's article vis a vis Naipaul's India. The one from dri was silly and personal. I know many Indian Americans who get all worked up even if legitimate criticism is made of that society. Understanding one's drawbacks is the first step to improvement. If even that first step is not taken everything will stay the same. India is today largely the same as it was in the fifties, sixties, seventies and into the 21st. century. In 2011 our trip from Delhi to Chennai by the prestigious Rajdhani Express was deplorable because of the very dirty toilets all made so by passengers who I believe belonged to the upper class. Garbage collection does not exist in most of India but was there in 13th. century France. I really fear for India's future. It seems that country can go on only if an outside force is imposed upon it. Churchill did express doubts if Indians can run their own affairs and it is being proven right. It is a really "Wounded Civilization" per Naipaul.
Yet, East Indians in Guyana (my homeland) and Trinidad (Naipaul's homeland) are among the cleanest people that I know. Muslims and Hindus in Guyana don't even wear shoes in their houses. Our toilets are spotless and even when we use to have latrines, it was always clean. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, especially those who recently migrates to North America.
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