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Brown terrorism at CWG
Aditya SinhaFirst Published : 24 Sep 2010 11:17:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 24 Sep 2010 11:34:31 PM IST
Our home minister, P Chidambaram, might call it dark-brown terrorism. The Commonwealth Games organising committee secretary-general, Lalit Bhanot, on the other hand sees nothing sinister in the state of our toilets and attributes the panic by some foreigners to cultural differences. On the evidence provided by toilets in trains, I would have to say that as a nation we made a fundamental mistake: the CWG should have been held in South India and not in the North. Not only would the heat have decimated the competition (witness the recent Davis Cup tie in Chennai, where Brazil simply ran out of energy), no one would have complained about flooded washroom floors and stained toilet bowls. Mr Kalaignar would have personally seen to that.
But thanks to Suresh Kalmadi, inc., the CWG organisers, India no longer looks like a nation of IT innovation and entrepreneurship; perhaps that was just a façade anyway. The BBC released photos of toilets at the CWG village dormitories, and they were unflattering. Most newspapers in India published the photos but really, what was new about them? Most mens rooms that I have peeked into most of my life were a lot worse; as a correspondent I could not even use the toilets in Indias seats of power, North Block and South Block, no matter how sudden and severe my Delhi belly, because they were ****** (giving a new meaning to the name Block). I suspect it is not much different in the ladies toilets.
Working in the field I would hold it in until I was on my way back to office and I could stop at a five-star hotel (where the problem was different: being accosted post-defecation by a towel-bearing unfortunate fellow whose job was to hang around the wash-basins all day). Notice that I did not wait to reach office to attend an urgent call of nature. At my previous office, there was a friend whom I always informed of my excretory excursions, and he would ask: Lava or pellets?
In a sense, Bhanots windy statement had an element of truth to it: we Indians avoid dealing with our scatological bequests despite Gandhijis desperate but ultimately futile advice that true swaraj lay in cleaning your own toilet. And if we dont deal with it, then I guess were not in a position to mind the filthiness. Which is hypocritical, especially when Danny Boyle decides to shoot quite a funny scene in Slumdog Millionaire in which a ghetto boy dives into excreta to retrieve a photo of the Big B; remember the howls of protest? Perhaps Bhanot is right; despite our ritual fastidiousness we are perhaps simply inured to the **** around us.
The only exception I have found to this willingness to tolerate the random turd is in the armed forces. You can safely ask to use the washroom at any cantonment. Spic-and-span. Perhaps thats because military mobilisation is a serious and meticulous matter with consequences; about 15 years ago I read a report on how soldiers on the Siachen Glacier were suffering from ailments like piles and anal fistula because there wasnt enough green in their diets (the army responded promptly by increasing leafy food in the jawans diet).
Yet despite the militarys efficiency I wouldnt want it to take over running the country, for then we would be like Pakistan which, like a broken toilet, is over-flooded at the moment.
Bhanot, wise man that he is, had another valid point when he said westerners have a different standard of cleanliness, and this is evidenced by the fact of toilet paper. Yes. Yuck, completely. Even the Japanese use health faucets. Perhaps what will symbolically mark the eventual economic triumph of Asia is when even the consort to head of the Commonwealth, Prince Philip, washes his anus with water.
Perhaps the CWG village would have looked cleaner if instead of aping the West as usual, we had built our traditional squat toilets in the bathrooms. Why not? The users are presumably all athletic (only India sends more pot-bellied officials than athletes to prestigious international competitions) so they can get used to ten days of squatting quite easily.
To assist them we could have put charts up on the inside of the door to the bathroom, positioned so that they could see it while squatting: a chart on how to wash yourself. It could explain how, with regard to the hands, the left is for washing yourself and the right is for feeding yourself (much like our political arrangements). Come to think of it, an illustration of an Indian man with his right hand to his mouth and his left hand to his bottom pretty much illustrates that our nations rapid strides forward are actually no mean physical accomplishment.
Im getting sidetracked; the real point is that even if we have cultural differences we are doomed to fail as hosts if we cant give our visitors a sense of comfort. Essential to that sense of comfort is a clean and inviting toilet. Whether you sit or squat, your activity is a universal; and what you produce is the same colour, no matter what your race or caste or faith. Even Barack Obama, when he visits India in November, will sit on a pot and ponder. **** is secular. It is humanitys lowest common denominator. Unlike food, its variation in consistency or appearance does not depend on your culture, but on your bacteria.
Proper hospitality was obviously not a job to be left to the likes of Suresh Kalmadi, who deserves the death penalty as much as Afzal Guru, or Bhanot. I would agree with many on twitter this week that the job of organising the CWG should have been handed over to former IPL boss Lalit Modi. Sure, there were questionable financial deals in the IPL but as far as I remember, none if it had to do with public money. And Modi put on a show that made the English and the Australians gawk with awe.
Instead, even Lesotho and Uganda, on behalf of the 19 African nations supposed to take part in CWG, have publicly expressed dismay at not being allowed to inspect the substandard facilities. In short, a nation that keeps trumpeting itself as an emerging economic power is a laughingstock in every corner of the world. People will wonder if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh truly is Mr Clean. But one thing is for sure: for a long time to come, no one is going to believe that the government of India is getting its **** together
About The Author;
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian Express and is based in Chennai. (editorchief@expressbuzz.com)
Brown terrorism at CWG | | | Indian Express
Aditya SinhaFirst Published : 24 Sep 2010 11:17:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 24 Sep 2010 11:34:31 PM IST
Our home minister, P Chidambaram, might call it dark-brown terrorism. The Commonwealth Games organising committee secretary-general, Lalit Bhanot, on the other hand sees nothing sinister in the state of our toilets and attributes the panic by some foreigners to cultural differences. On the evidence provided by toilets in trains, I would have to say that as a nation we made a fundamental mistake: the CWG should have been held in South India and not in the North. Not only would the heat have decimated the competition (witness the recent Davis Cup tie in Chennai, where Brazil simply ran out of energy), no one would have complained about flooded washroom floors and stained toilet bowls. Mr Kalaignar would have personally seen to that.
But thanks to Suresh Kalmadi, inc., the CWG organisers, India no longer looks like a nation of IT innovation and entrepreneurship; perhaps that was just a façade anyway. The BBC released photos of toilets at the CWG village dormitories, and they were unflattering. Most newspapers in India published the photos but really, what was new about them? Most mens rooms that I have peeked into most of my life were a lot worse; as a correspondent I could not even use the toilets in Indias seats of power, North Block and South Block, no matter how sudden and severe my Delhi belly, because they were ****** (giving a new meaning to the name Block). I suspect it is not much different in the ladies toilets.
Working in the field I would hold it in until I was on my way back to office and I could stop at a five-star hotel (where the problem was different: being accosted post-defecation by a towel-bearing unfortunate fellow whose job was to hang around the wash-basins all day). Notice that I did not wait to reach office to attend an urgent call of nature. At my previous office, there was a friend whom I always informed of my excretory excursions, and he would ask: Lava or pellets?
In a sense, Bhanots windy statement had an element of truth to it: we Indians avoid dealing with our scatological bequests despite Gandhijis desperate but ultimately futile advice that true swaraj lay in cleaning your own toilet. And if we dont deal with it, then I guess were not in a position to mind the filthiness. Which is hypocritical, especially when Danny Boyle decides to shoot quite a funny scene in Slumdog Millionaire in which a ghetto boy dives into excreta to retrieve a photo of the Big B; remember the howls of protest? Perhaps Bhanot is right; despite our ritual fastidiousness we are perhaps simply inured to the **** around us.
The only exception I have found to this willingness to tolerate the random turd is in the armed forces. You can safely ask to use the washroom at any cantonment. Spic-and-span. Perhaps thats because military mobilisation is a serious and meticulous matter with consequences; about 15 years ago I read a report on how soldiers on the Siachen Glacier were suffering from ailments like piles and anal fistula because there wasnt enough green in their diets (the army responded promptly by increasing leafy food in the jawans diet).
Yet despite the militarys efficiency I wouldnt want it to take over running the country, for then we would be like Pakistan which, like a broken toilet, is over-flooded at the moment.
Bhanot, wise man that he is, had another valid point when he said westerners have a different standard of cleanliness, and this is evidenced by the fact of toilet paper. Yes. Yuck, completely. Even the Japanese use health faucets. Perhaps what will symbolically mark the eventual economic triumph of Asia is when even the consort to head of the Commonwealth, Prince Philip, washes his anus with water.
Perhaps the CWG village would have looked cleaner if instead of aping the West as usual, we had built our traditional squat toilets in the bathrooms. Why not? The users are presumably all athletic (only India sends more pot-bellied officials than athletes to prestigious international competitions) so they can get used to ten days of squatting quite easily.
To assist them we could have put charts up on the inside of the door to the bathroom, positioned so that they could see it while squatting: a chart on how to wash yourself. It could explain how, with regard to the hands, the left is for washing yourself and the right is for feeding yourself (much like our political arrangements). Come to think of it, an illustration of an Indian man with his right hand to his mouth and his left hand to his bottom pretty much illustrates that our nations rapid strides forward are actually no mean physical accomplishment.
Im getting sidetracked; the real point is that even if we have cultural differences we are doomed to fail as hosts if we cant give our visitors a sense of comfort. Essential to that sense of comfort is a clean and inviting toilet. Whether you sit or squat, your activity is a universal; and what you produce is the same colour, no matter what your race or caste or faith. Even Barack Obama, when he visits India in November, will sit on a pot and ponder. **** is secular. It is humanitys lowest common denominator. Unlike food, its variation in consistency or appearance does not depend on your culture, but on your bacteria.
Proper hospitality was obviously not a job to be left to the likes of Suresh Kalmadi, who deserves the death penalty as much as Afzal Guru, or Bhanot. I would agree with many on twitter this week that the job of organising the CWG should have been handed over to former IPL boss Lalit Modi. Sure, there were questionable financial deals in the IPL but as far as I remember, none if it had to do with public money. And Modi put on a show that made the English and the Australians gawk with awe.
Instead, even Lesotho and Uganda, on behalf of the 19 African nations supposed to take part in CWG, have publicly expressed dismay at not being allowed to inspect the substandard facilities. In short, a nation that keeps trumpeting itself as an emerging economic power is a laughingstock in every corner of the world. People will wonder if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh truly is Mr Clean. But one thing is for sure: for a long time to come, no one is going to believe that the government of India is getting its **** together
About The Author;
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of The New Indian Express and is based in Chennai. (editorchief@expressbuzz.com)
Brown terrorism at CWG | | | Indian Express
