Squatters, Scavengers and A Gandhian

Re: # 23

Shahji:

Thanks for sharing this info. My childhood was in a city - Lyalpur - and we had two latrines, one on the ground floor and the other on the roof which opened to sky. I always preferred the roof one as it was more airy and less stinky. But if we were outside and had the "haajat", we would go to a field near the canal, always making sure that we went upstream for washing from the boy who washed before us.

Re: # 22

This was another Madani classic. May I suggest you switch to Perrier. Its pur eau minerale and is bottled in curvy glass bottles:)

DM yar, we are amazing people..i was in a village and it had designated areas for men and women to go do the morning shyte. mens area was some kind of ancient ruins..so we were prolly shyting on some kind of ancient mauryan tablets, maybe temple deities. perfect example of hindo ethos of maya and shyte

This is from CNN today:

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Most Indian mothers want their daughters to marry decent men who make a good living. Now, in parts of rural India, women have a new -- and rather unusual -- demand for matrimony: a toilet.

"No toilet, no bride," has become a rallying cry for women raising a stink about the lack of a basic amenity.

They see it as a human rights issue, especially in villages where plumbing can be nonexistent.

It was that way in Sunariyan Kalan in the northern state of Haryana. Sumitra Rathi said village women had no choice but to relieve themselves without privacy.

They would go before sunrise or hold it in until darkness fell once again to avoid being seen. Or they would walk out to the fields and endure embarrassment. They don't want their daughters to face the same indignity.

"Many of them do make serious inquiries from the families of grooms about latrines," she said.

As a member of the local council, Rathi has helped build toilets in 250 houses in Sunariyan Kalan since 1996.

Still, about five dozen homes lack covered bathrooms.

The problem is so big in India that the country would need to construct 112,000 toilets every day if it wants to meet its sanitation goal by 2012, according to the Ministry of Rural Development.

Even as India emerges as a global economic power, millions of its citizens still live in poverty. The government estimates that less than 30 percent of villagers have access to latrines, which poses serious health risks and increases the threat of deadly diseases like typhoid and malaria.

To help overcome the enormity of the sanitation challenge, the government is offering incentives to encourage villagers to build bathrooms. The poorest

of the poor in Haryana stands to receive Rs. 2,200 ($48) for each toilet they install, said P.S. Yadav, a state coordinator for the sanitation campaign.

The incentives are especially attractive to women, for whom the problem transcends health issues.

Local women, often illiterate, have taken a keen interest in bathroom construction, said Roshni Devi, the council chief in Haryana's Kothal Khurd village.


Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

DM ji

Well-done dear! Only a Gandhian could deal with such a subject. Our Faiz had also pointed out to such matters rather romantically in his poetry when he had said:

"Aur bhi dukh hein zamaane mein muhabat ke siva
Raahitein aor bhi hein wasl ki raahat ke siwa"

He did give detail of some 'Dukhs' (pains), like:

'Jism nikle huey amraaz ke tanooron se
Peep behti hui galte huey naasooron se," etc., etc."

But did not say any thing about the 'Raahitein' available to human beings (and all the living beings, of course) other than 'wasl'.

One of the big raahat, in my view, is the getting ourselves relieved of our necessary excretions and their disposal. In fact, even wasl also ultimately ends in the disposal of the male's semen, an excretion of the testicles and the prostate, but it creates more problems for the wasl-partener if she happens to be a female. Sorry I am getting a bit off-track.

Now comming back to the topic, I may tell you that I was also born in a small village called, Boota, situated about 6 miles south of Atak (formerly, Campbellpur). It has, in the north, green waving fields of wheat, corn, baajirah, etc., and a prennial stream of clean water flowing near by, and in the south a thick jungle of Kala Chitta mountain. So we had an ample facility for relieving ourselves in the green fields and ravines, in an atmosphere all full of oxygen and sweet songs of the birds in the morning. All this made defecating so enjoyable, with dignity fully protected, and ample facility provided for washing by the flowing stream nearby, unlike a washroom where you get shut up in a small room, feel suffocated and wish to get out of it at the earliest.

But an uncle of mine, who had been in the army, whenever he addressed the villagers would call them 'O kheton mein hagne waalo' (O those who defecated in the fields). So he had a sort of a 'two-nation' theory also, dividing humanity in two categories, 'Kheton mein hagne waale' and 'Wash room users'.

I wonder how Chinese and Japanese dispose off their excretions as there is a general perception that they are very keen in using it as a manure while we loose it by flushing it so callously.

Re: # 16 I do not know if water gets state by storing in Tanks. Normally dam storaged water is better generally for drinking as salts and dusts etc settles down is not Hard water so taste s better. Now all elites and wanabi elites are drinking bottled water in Plastics. If watch carefully real elites ( who if they work for fun or for showing poor they are working and they go for fun foreign) drink from glass bottled water while wanabi elites drink in plastc bottles which must be dangerous to body. So storage point is moot but my late wife had some ideas about fresh water and all water stored more than two days was not good, I had argued once with her and then shut up and with daughters I never argue as they think I am born to serve and agree with them.
Stored water is not bad but stored in plastic bottle is bad due to leaking of plastic and that leads to heart attack and rise of blood pressure, diabetis and kidney failure etc.
STORED OR FREE FLOWING WATER IS NOT NUTRIOUS IF THAT WATER PASSES THROUGH TURBINE AND USED TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY AS VITAL PORTION OF BODY IS WATER BUT IT IS NOT WATER WHICH IS DEENERGISED BY TAKING OUT POTENTIAL ENERGY.
IF HAVE LOTS MONEY TO BURN THEN BEST WATER WILL BE FROM ICE FROM ARTIC AND NOT IN PLASTIC CONTAINER.

Dost ji ... that's the thing, it is not! ... here is an article from a blog that best explains the unfortunate coincidence:

[[The word "crap" is old in the English language, one of a group of verbs applied to discarded cast offs, like "residue from renderings" (1490s) or in Shropshire, "dregs of beer or ale", meanings probably extended from Middle English crappe "chaff, or grain that has been trodden underfoot in a barn" (c. 1440s), deriving ultimately from Late Latin crappa, "chaff".

The word fell out of use in Britain by the 1600s, but remained prevalent in the North American colonies which would eventually become the United States. The meaning "to defecate" was recorded in the U.S. since 1846 (according to Oxford and Merriam-Webster), but the word did not hold this meaning at all in Victorian England.

The connection to Thomas Crapper is conjectured by Adam Hart-Davis to be an unfortunate coincidence of his surname. The occupational name Crapper is a variant spelling of Cropper. In the US, the word crapper is a dysphemism for "toilet". The term first appeared in print in the 1930s. It has been suggested that US soldiers while stationed in England during World War I (some of whom had little experience with indoor plumbing) saw many toilets printed with "T. Crapper" in the glaze and brought the word home as a synonym for "toilet" — a sort of back-formation from "crap". This suggestion, however, overlooks the fact that "crapper" was a well-established word long before that time.

Yet another purported explanation is that Thomas Crapper's flush toilet advertising was so widespread, and the business name "T. Crapper & Co. Ltd, Chelsea". was seen on so many toilets, that "crapper" became a synonym for "toilet" and people simply assumed that he was the inventor.

Despite the word usually taking the form of either a noun or verb, some people (usually speakers from Commonwealth countries[citation needed]) use crap interchangeably with its adjective form "crappy". For example, "David Rotimi has a really crap video card", or "Victor Odumusu is crap at this."

Subjects may be referred to as "crap", used synomymously to words such as "rubbish", "baloney", or "hogwash". Examples may include: "This apple is crap", or "Your arguments are crap".]]

Dost:

It seems like the problem is one of lack of education, and not money, since the Sulabh toilets are so inexpensive.

Here is a recent newstory of how women are demanding toilets in the home before marriage.

In India, New Seat of Power for Women
Prospective Brides Demand Sought-After Commodity: A Toilet

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR 2009101101934.html

Re: # 18

cheema saab:

I don't think there is any irony. I believe the word crap comes from Crapper.

Thomas "CRAPPER"!!! ... how poetic the irony!

LOL!!!

This from Wike but this is curriculum of Prerventive Social medicine on this subject

Types

Roman public latrinae found in the excavations of Ostia Antica. , while newer developments show promise using ecological sanitation (EcoSan).

Some different types and technologies regarding latrines are:

1/Pit toilets, or pit latrines, are the simplest and cheapest type, minimally defined as a hole in the ground. The most basic improvement is installation of a floor plate. A dry pit does not penetrate the water table, while a wet pit does.

2/A Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) Latrine is one that reduces two of the most common problems with a simple pit latrine: odor and fly/mosquito breeding. Adding a ventilating pipe is the key improvement of the ventilated improved pit latrine. See Pit toilet.

3/The Double-vault Ventilated Composting Latrine is currently the most advanced, free-standing latrine. Apart from offering significant reduction in risk from waterborne disease, this type of ecological sanitation provides the closure of some nutrient cycles by allowing the safe, composted waste to be used as a "free" soil treatment in agriculture.
Squat toilet


5/A water privy uses a watertight tank that receives the waste and sends it to an underground seepage pit or drainage area.[citation needed]


6/"Flying latrines" refers to plastic bags used as toilets in African slums, so named because after being filled, "you throw them as far away as you can."[3] This has led to the banning of the manufacture and import of such bags in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.[3]


7/Reed Odourless Earth Closet (ROEC) is an improvement of VIP latrine. Common in southern Africa. Some parts of Europe still use latrines in villages that are located in distant rural areas.

8/Pour-Flush Latrine

9/Cistern-Flush Toilet

10]Bucket Latrine

11/Pour-Flush Toilet and Vault

madani saheb:

Does water in tank storage really get stale? When I am in Delhi, I do not use water that much and my stored water stays there for a week or more. Is it unsafe?

It is not needed amount but nonavailability of water leads to excess storage and wastage.

Re: # 9 About water use there is my observation.
People who have no 24 hour water use more water per person.
Those who have 24 hr water ( like defense col. etc with tanks built for 24 water) they do not store water just use needed.
Where there is water for hour, people go and fill all and most of time in 3 days they throw away that water as "stale" and go and refill again. ( I am talking about personal use water not watering gardens etc)

Re: # 8

Kulhari saab:

I may have left India but to quote the cliche, India never left me. I have also drawn from my own experience in writing this, both while growing up as well as going there as a visitor and now as a "snowbirder". [Will be there next week :)]

bhs75:

I think that the Indian tradition puts more emphasis on washing hands and people are expected to wash hands before and after sitting down to eat. I suspect that the concept there has as much to do with ritual purity than to hygiene even though hygiene was perhaps the original reason for the ritual.