Off The Beaten Path

Pissing...

 

This is a public urinal in Delhi. Pissing in India can be an art, depending on where you are.

In my younger days, when I was very young and not so innocent, I had too much to drink, one evening.Way to much beer in the system. And, as does happen in these  things, something had to give. My bladder. So, I stood on the road side and pissed away to "hell and glory", yelling to everyone that they were welcome to come and see the special public fountain show!

Another time, I had to do a little more than pee. Well, I popped into the public loo, crapped. And, surprise, surprise, there was nothing with which I could clean my bum. So, I took out all the money I had ( almost all, anyway), and cleaned up. The toilet was stinking.

Generally, when you have to go to a public loo in India, one of the first things you have to do, is to hold your nose, to avoid being blown away by the stench. Then, you have to perform the delicate task of balancing/standing in the one or two relatively clean spots on the ground. And then, you have to perform.

If the job requires more than pissing, the delicate art of balancing becomes more intricate. You have to squat, hold your trousers up, hold the shirt tails up with one hand. With the other hand, you have to hold the door, to prevent it from swinging open. And then, you have to perform.

Now all of this is, is what a man has to do in order to relieve himself in a public toilet in India.

Women have it easier, in a sense!! The toilets are generally too dirty for them to use, else they will end up with gynecological problems, and only make pharmaceutical companies and doctors rich. So, they simply have to control themselves, and pray they their bladders don't burst on the way home. But, no delicate balancing acts are to be performed, mind you!

The question then arises, is why on earth we cannot build a culture of public hygiene in the country. We do have a lot of problems, and this is definitely one of them. Apart from being an eyesore, and creating an unpleasant experience, these places are also the hot beds of disease and filth.

Our country is developing inmany spheres. This is not one of them. However, with the economic development of the country, there will bean increasing number of foreigners coming into the country. These places do nothing for our image as a country.

As our country develops, hopefully we Indians will become more aware of the perils of these unsightly public toilets, which are a health hazard, as well as being a blight aesthetically.

Till then, the art of pissing in public will continue. An art that deserves to die a quick death. 

Selling Fashion

We all love fashion, and wearing fashionable clothes. Of course, buying fashionable clothes makes us feel as good as wearing fashionable clothes.

Buying from the right shop is important. We're confident of the quality, even if the store may over charge us sometimes.

It also adds to our "face value". Buying from a high end store adds so much to our prestige. Sometimes more than the brand itself.

And, who does not love a great mannequin? They are all great! I remember watching a movie many years ago, about a manneqyin that came to life.

And, sometimes, like these young ladies on the left, they stare at us from a height!

The question that I have in my mind, however, is how many people would like to buy clothes from this shop? Okay, it looks pretty run down, and has probably even closed business for quite some time. But, I am not sure if I would like to have been seen dead in the shop at any point of it's career!

The shopkeeper defintely needed his lessons on how to sell fashion. He was probably better at selling his business!

Waiting For The King!

I don't recall how many small kingdoms India had in 1947, the year that we became an independent nation. However, I believe that the figure was much over 250.

I think that the first real consolidation started with the Mughals, and continued with the British reign. However, I do not believe that either really did much to consolidate us into one country.

This happened after 1947, when we had the services of the great Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. Without the great task of abolishing the princely states, and consolidating us into one nation (even though we were a "nation" before then), we would have probably broken or splintered back into many warring factions.

Yet, old loyalties and habits die hard. The Royal families, some of them, have  gone on to become political leaders, with their suave charm. Some have stayed out of politics, but have stayed on as the adored rulers in their old principalities. Some have simply faded away. Small eras ended.

So, what does this picture have to do with royalty? Well, this is a shot I took in Mysore many years ago. Mysore, incidentally, is the home of Pattabhi Jois, the most famous teacher of Ashtanga Yoga. It was also the hometown of two great kinds of yore - Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan.

On this day, around Dussehra, people had gathered on their rooftops, on the streets, to catch a glimpse of the President of India (or, the Prime Minister), who was passing by that day. On Dussehra day, the old Palace of Tipu Sultan used to be lit up to celebrate the festival. Not on that day, though. I remember that the Raja was protesting the Income Tax enquires that had been placed against his door!

Yet, the president was passing by. The new Royalty. Without much of the pomp and finery of the old Rajas, but with a much larger power base. And, if you consider our tendency towards political dynasties, like the Gandhi family, it makes me wonder if people need kings. Else, why would a country of over 1 billion people stay obsessed with one family when we have the option, theoretically, to choose more able leaders.

The people waited on the rooftop, on the streets, to catch a glimpse of the new King, and to be blessed by his aura. Like they have always done through the ages gone by.

Desecration

In India, they say, public property is everyone's property, and that we don't have any respect for public property. I tend to believe this to be true, as the statue in this entry reveals.

We absolutely love sticking posters, labels, writing crap on any sort of public property, and making a general mess of what we have. A few years ago, there was a bit of public outrage because Coke and Pepsi were alleged to have commissioned wall paintings in the Gangotri area of the Himalayan range, thereby upsetting the delicate eco-balance of the region, and possibly killing many micro organisms. Like any public outrage, this died down quickly, and soon life was back to normal. There were no lessons to be drawn, no strictures put up on how to behave in public places, and it would appear as if the incident had never happened.

This incident came to the public eye, because the acts were perpetrated by multi national companies, those awful, awful icons of greedy capitalism. The fact that we all seem to have conveniently forgotten, is that all of us, in our daily lives, throw garbage on the street, thereby spreading disease. Garbage on the street looks ugly as well. Yet, we are proud of our freedom to throw garbage on the street, and I have been guilty of this myself.

We Indians are really very bad with public property. My Chinese brethren are not too great either. Yet, when I travelled to Jiu Zhai Gou in China, there were public signs everywhere exhorting people not to touch the calcite deposits, or to walk in the forest. The authorities had made paths for people to walk on. Transport in the area was via electrically powered buses. All this was done, is being done, to preserve the environment of the area. I think that this is a superb initiative. What I found even more impressive (and, I travelled there during the crowded holiday season), was that all my Chinese friends respected the strictures, and not one person was found littering, walking in the forests, touching the calcite deposits, or sticking posters on the rocks. There was respect for the instructions, and for the environment.

I don't believe that this is something that is at all difficult. But, we need to start somewhere. The lead does need to come to the top.

Memorial To A God

Many years ago, God died. Well, he was God to a few million people in India anyway, and his name was MG Ramachandran. Called MGR.

Honestly, I don't remember much of him, except that he was always wearing some kind of a cap, and dark glasses. I was never too sure of whether the glasses were a medical requirement or, an affectation because of fashion.

MGR was a flim star who was popular sometime in the 70's I think, and then became a politician. He was GOD to his fans, some of whom could not bear the news of his death and immolated themselves, rather than be faced with a life without God.

I don't think that this tendency to deify filmstars and heros is unique to India, even though India has it's own unique way of expressing this.And, in India, the way of expression differs between the North and South Indians.

Yet, God dies. When do you truly die? Some believe that you die when you die in the memory of people. And so, surely but slowly this God is dying. His memorial in Madras (Chennai), seen above, silhoutteted against the early morning sun is slowly becoming irrelevant. It's a nice enough memorial, but will disappear one day.

And, till he dies, God will be remembereed differently by different people. A form of death, perhaps?