TO PRAY AND TO POO

To pray and to poo

Even as the controversy of saying the two t-words together raged for a while, the similarities between temples and toilets, and some ways of bringing these two basic Indian public amenities together, is worth exploring.

The one commonality between them is the spontaneity and informality with which both flourish. All it requires is for a person, or few, to tie a thread around a tree trunk, come to pray to it regularly, and soon you’ll have a pundit or family who has adopted it, get a funder, and lo, the next time you pass by, a puja will be on in hearty gusto, with a queue of cars, motorbikes, scooters and cycles lined up alongside it, and a queue of the pious waiting to get a glimpse of the stone or idol inside the ‘temple’.

That’s a process very similar to the sprouting of malodorous, informal toilet zones. These too start with one guy peeing in a small crook, or behind a tree; one child squatting to take a poo, who will then, over the next days and weeks, be joined by others of a similar need, and behold, soon you can see the backs of men, pelvis thrust slightly forward doing their business, or have an entire row of squatting children, cheekily grinning at you, and women chatting, while performing their daily ablution.

It’s the lack of privacy for doing these two things – praying and pooing – that both these activities share. And it’s not a rich-poor thing for the latter, either. While the better off and rich in India may have toilets in their homes, they are just as carefree and unashamed about where and how their toilet garbage is disposed. They share an equal lack of mortification about who handles their bloody pads or soaking diapers – the stinking, overflowing garbage dumps dotting all the posh colonies of Delhi are ample proof of that. That spirit of not being responsible for our shit is a cultural, not a rich- poor thing.

Now, it would be so much better if we actually started to treat these two activities as similar in more healthy ways. Temples and their goers should uphold the saying ‘Godliness is next to Cleanliness’ as top priority. Funders of temples should insist on building a few swanky toilets with the temple.

Temples should encourage their patrons to donate generously to the building of toilets in private homes of the less privileged, as well as public ones. The powerful and rich should vie to be invited for toilet praveshes or launches!

In addition, just like no self-respecting lady or man of the house will allow family members to enter their puja spaces without having bathed or being clean, toilets too should be treated with the same personal care and hygiene. Why do you need someone else, usually the lowest person by caste or class, to clean your toilet? Why shouldn’t it be the family’s own job to maintain a shining, fragrant toilet, just like the puja room. How cool will that be – our upper caste and class starting to take responsibility for their own shit rather than blaming it on god!