I took an overnight train to central India after Christmas and what struck me most was not the scenery (it was pretty dry) or the livestock in the streets (though I do love baby animals). It was the bathroom situation.
The restroom on the train — and I didn't take first class — was surprisingly not disgusting. It was relatively clean and even had soap in the dispenser. That is more than I can say for many of the restrooms I have visited in Mumbai's restaurants.
I was impressed. Until morning came.
I used the bathroom again after daybreak. After brushing my teeth and attempting to clean up my mascara-induced raccoon eyes, I glanced at the squat toilet -- and saw light! I looked closer and could spot rocks, dirt and some trash on the tracks below. On the 12-hour journey from Mumbai to Amravati, a train full of passengers had been urinating and defecating directly onto the railroad tracks.
One often hears about the lack of toilets in India. Emily Wax wrote a great Washington Post piece on how women in rural India have been demanding toilets before marriage. The article, which describes a campaign whose radio jingle is “no loo, no ‘I do,’ ” states that the lack of sanitation contributes to the spread of diseases like diarrhea, typhoid and malaria.
"Women suffer the most since there are prying eyes everywhere," clinic doctor Ashok Gera told the Washington Post. "It's humiliating, harrowing and extremely unhealthy. I see so many young women who have prolonged urinary tract infections and kidney and liver problems because they don't have a safe place to go."
One also hears about how poor people in Mumbai have no bathrooms and must resort to going on the train tracks. I had never imagined, though, that I would — unintentionally — join the crowd.
During my two days in Amravati, I met with groups of cotton farmers who have started following organic farming regulations. Many of the farmers invited me and my traveling companion, Seth Petchers from Shop for Change, to their homes for tea. No matter how much tea we had just drunk, or how late we were to our next appointment, we were obligated (and appreciative) to accept the warm invitation.
We would arrive at each humble farmhouse, I'd admire the water buffalo or calf out back, and then we would take off our shoes and go into the living area. The men and I would sit on the bed-turned-sofa, and the woman of the house would make the tea. She would serve us delicious chai tea already prepared with milk and plenty of sugar in tiny metal cups or matching ceramic cups and saucers.
This much tea, and I had no option but to get a tour of the bathrooms.
In one of the homes, the family was relatively well off because the grandfather worked as a farmer plus received Rs. 10,000 a month (US$215) as a pension from his years as a school headmaster. The home had a couple bedrooms, a living room with a concrete floor and TV, a kitchen and an area with a shrine to Hindu gods and goddesses. Big sacks filled with soybeans leaned against the wall near the entrance. It was a quaint, lovely home.
The “bathroom,” though, was another matter. It consisted of a rectangular structure with a ceiling and door, similar to an outhouse. And yet there was no toilet. There was not even a hole in the ground. If you were generous, you could argue that the floor had a slant, and any liquid could theoretically work its way across the floor and through a tiny hole in one of the walls, sort of like a drain. But again, you would have to be generous.
After all that tea, I had no option but to use this “bathroom.” Barefoot.
Bathrooms in India, except in fancy places, never have toilet paper. This one did not even have a trashcan (or hole in the ground) in which to throw the tissue I had brought.
Moving on.
Later that day, after more cups of tea, I used the restroom at a relatively nice restaurant in town. This place was not fancy by any means, but it had table service, plenty of customers and a friendly atmosphere. It felt middle class.
Except for the bathroom.
This one was a step-up from the farmer’s because there were white tile footrests on which I could place my feet. This gave the room the resemblance of a proper bathroom. But again, no hole in the ground!
Even worse than the lack of a hole in this alleged bathroom, were what the room had instead: spiders. There were spiders hanging from the ceiling, crawling on the walls and dangling way too close to the tile footrests. My eyes darted from one to the next as I tried to predict which way they would run and jump out of the way.
I finished up in the bathroom, cleaned my hands with my travel-size hand sanitizer, and met Seth outside. “I must say,” I told him. “I’m a trooper.”
Of course, after two days, I left Amravati and returned to my modern apartment in Pali Hill, Mumbai, where I have a Western toilet and no spiders. If I want, I can frequent Mumbai’s fancy restaurants where the bathrooms have toilet paper and even soap in the dispenser.
Yet more than 300 million women in India live without any toilet whatsoever every day of the year, including during their menstruation. I don’t understand how they manage.
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