Speaking of going to the toilet in India, a bitter tear.
As a tourist, near some long-distance bus stations or railway stations and tourist attractions in big cities, you can find paid public toilets with special care and give them to the doorman 10 to 20 rupees to enter conveniently. The room is a separate small room, all squatting. Because of well-known reasons, Indians don't use toilet paper when they go to the toilet, but wash it with water, so the toilet floor is usually full of water. The first time I went to the public toilet, I had no experience at all. I almost slipped when I strode in with flip-flops. I carefully finished the toilet, carefully filled the plastic bucket next to me with water, poured it into the pit, and then opened the door. I suddenly realized that the dirty water on the ground may have been spilled when people flushed the toilet. I felt a little sick at the thought of this, so I quickly jumped out on tiptoe with my pants on. The Indian woman next to me looked askance at my strange behavior.
A few days later, I went to a small town by bus. After getting off the bus, I looked around for the toilet. I saw a toilet for men only-a few white tiles were stuck on the wall, there were several pits on the ground, and then the space symbolizing privacy was separated by cement, which became an open-air toilet with Indian characteristics. As long as a man turns around, it's convenient, and when he's finished, he leaves calmly.
I couldn't find the ladies' room anywhere, so I had to rush into a shop for help. The host reluctantly agreed to let me use the private toilet in his backyard. I rushed in with a grateful heart and a bladder that was about to explode. I saw that the toilet was built with a few pieces of wood and a broken curtain. There is a big hole in the middle of the wood, and there is an iron drum under it. When I squatted on it, my mind was full of the plot of the movie Slumdog Millionaire: Gemma, the hero? Malik was in a simple toilet built with wooden boards. The bomber suddenly circled overhead, and then the whole toilet was overturned and excrement flew out of the hole. ...
A few days later, I took the bus all the way south, and the bumpy road and Bollywood music made me sleepy. Suddenly I felt a cramp in my stomach: it's broken! It must be caused by eating too many fried flowers in newspaper bags. I've been paying attention to the latest situation of my stomach, and then I feel a little unbearable. I hurried to the front and asked the driver to find a place with a public toilet to park. The driver who was choosing vegetables while driving told me that there was no public toilet here, but it would be convenient for me to park in a safe place.
After a while, the driver stopped the car. In full view, I jumped off the bus with toilet paper in my hand, trotted off to the roadside fields and finally disappeared behind a reed. When I came back, everyone looked at me kindly as a foreigner and smiled with relief. At that moment, I was very glad that I would never see these people again in my life.
The night sleeper bus is also a common means of transportation when I am in india tourism. Of course, we don't expect drivers to stop at a well-lit service station every time, just like traveling in Turkey. During the 19-hour journey from Goa to Chennai, the driver stopped every four or five hours, then knocked on the iron frame of the bed with his iron bar, shouting: pee, pee, pee, it's time .................................................................................................... The driver divided us into two groups: men and women. The man is convenient in front of the car, and the woman goes to the car to solve it. Afterwards, the bus started again.
On the surface, it seems that the backward construction of public facilities leads to the inconvenience of going to the toilet, but when I deeply understand the situation of Indian aborigines going to the toilet, I find that the reasons behind it are more complicated.
According to World Bank data, more than 70% of rural areas in India still lack public health facilities. According to the report of Water Aid Organization 20 17, the number of people without basic sanitation in India ranks first in the world with a huge "advantage" of 732 million (about 56% of the Indian population). In the slums of Mumbai, everyone uses public toilets, with an average of 8 1 person using one toilet. Some places even have one toilet for every 273 people, and the best places need 58 people to use one toilet.
According to UNICEF data, in rural areas, there are still about 564 million people going to the toilet in the open air-solving problems in fields, forests, ponds, roads and beaches. This behavior will spread diseases and lead to a series of environmental pollution, public health and other problems.
Last year, one of the most popular Indian movies was also about the toilet: toilet, a love story (IMDB7.5), which tells the story of a young Indian man and a young woman who entered a sweet marriage after free love. On the night of their wedding, the bride Jaye found that her husband's house had no toilet. She couldn't bear to urinate outdoors, and proposed to her husband Keshav that she must have a toilet, otherwise she would get divorced. ...
This strange and magical story is adapted from a true story: 20 12, Indian bride Anita? Nally couldn't stand the torture of going to the toilet outdoors, and ran out of her husband's house on the fourth day after her marriage, claiming that she wouldn't go home without a separate bathroom. After learning the news, a charity built a toilet for her. On the day when the toilet was opened, she returned home.
But in reality, not every woman is as lucky as she is, and she also has the help of charity. In the process of going to the toilet in the wild, many women are harassed and violated by the opposite sex. In Gedla village, Uttar Pradesh, two girls, aged 14 and 15, were raped and killed by many people while going to the toilet in the wild. Subsequently, the bodies of these girls were hung by rapists on a mango tree. The police also gave specific figures. Every day, 10 rape cases are reported, and 60% of the cases occur when women go out to use the toilet. A police officer in Bihar said that there were more than 400 rapes in the local area when women went out to go to the toilet. These tragedies would not have happened if the victim had a separate bathroom at home.
On the other side that tourists can't see, there is an absurd moment.
So is it really so difficult to build a toilet in India? Yes, it's really difficult for three reasons:
First of all, Hinduism has a very paranoid concept of "cleanliness".
In India, you must take off your shoes when you enter a temple and wear slippers when you enter a house, because shoes are covered with filth and are regarded as unclean. And the toilet, a place full of human excrement, is a hundred times dirtier than shoes. Hindus are not allowed to appear in their own homes in such places.
Although the Hindu caste system was definitely abolished as early as 1940s, it is not so easy to eradicate it from people's hearts. In the eyes of Hindus, cleaning up excrement is the work of untouchables, and some high-caste people will never do it. So even if the toilet is repaired at home, the question of who will clean it and who will clean it is not a problem in our opinion, but it has become a big problem in India.
SarahMacdonald, an Australian writer, once mentioned in the book "God Bull" that due to the caste system, she had to hire two servants, the Dalit servant was responsible for cleaning the toilet, and the high-caste servant cleaned the room and other areas, and resolutely refused to step into the toilet.
Indians' uncompromising attitude towards toilets makes it more difficult to build toilets.
Secondly, going to the toilet in the wild is a good opportunity to relax and socialize.
In rural areas, people actually reject going to the toilet, and men and women go to the toilet in the wild for different reasons. Indian men like to go outdoors conveniently, mainly to save water by themselves; Breathe fresh air at any time; Take advantage of the opportunity to go to the bathroom and hang out with my buddies to escape my mother's nagging.
After the tragedy that a woman was raped while going to the toilet in the wild, some public organizations with big chastity cards called on women not to be raped if they repaired the toilet at home. But in fact, going to the toilet in the wild is also a very important social way for women: the reason is that the status of Indian women has always been extremely low, especially in some remote and conservative rural areas. Women are not allowed to gather at the head of the village to chat or discuss social issues and exchange views, but going to the toilet in the wild together gives them a moment's respite and relaxation.
Finally, Modi's "toilet action" faces many challenges.
As early as 20 14 and 10 in June, Indian Prime Minister Modi launched the "Clean India Action" to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Gandhi's birthday. The core goal of this campaign is to build120,000 toilets in rural India, with a budget as high as 20 billion US dollars, and completely eliminate the bad habit of defecation and defecation by June 20 19. Its slogan is: have a toilet, go to the toilet, and feel at ease in the toilet.
But it is hard to say whether this goal can be achieved. Judging from the current situation, this vigorous movement of "building toilets" is not only seriously lagging behind, but also a lot of "face projects"-local governments have blindly built many "fake" public toilets that are not connected to the sewer system or septic tanks in order to show their achievements, regardless of whether the toilets can be actually used. Such public toilets usually lead to the accumulation and filth of excreta, and become a hotbed of some infectious diseases such as malaria.
Another problem that needs to be faced is the quality problem. Many toilets were abandoned in a short time, all because of the bean curd residue project or the design ratio. In order to solve this problem, some government agencies have set up construction training courses, but there is no standard course in the health system at present.
In addition, the bricklayer, an indispensable and important role in building toilets, is unwilling to take part in course training and prefers to learn through practical operation or apprenticeship, which also leads to uneven quality of toilets built.
Even if the toilet is built, many stubborn villagers still refuse to use it. There are custom reasons and religious factors, and the lack of publicity in the early stage also puts a question mark on whether the toilet can be used to the maximum extent.
In fact, not only outdoor toilets, but also many stubborn diseases and bad habits in Indian society are difficult to eradicate in a short time. From a higher level, it also illustrates the dilemma of India's progress towards modern civilization. Thousands of years of tradition and culture in India are wealth, but at the same time they are fetters.