Urination in the Indian nation

Kolkata: The right to pee, anywhere and everywhere, is an understated fundamental plight of our affluent nation. As boys, we are trained to never suppress and as grown-up men, this leads to undesirable oppression.

A telling piece of evidence is the coding of Number One and Number Two, the former signifying the minor act and the latter, naturally, the higher-order dispersal. Number One is quite like riding a bicycle, no licence is necessary as long as a basic balance is established. To persist with the comparison, it is possible almost everywhere, as kosher infrastructure is not a deemed necessity.

We are thus conditioned to search for friendly bushes and willing concrete, as a certain vertical orientation reduces the chances of boomerang spurts. Our fronts are usually to the walls, not backs, which makes it a genuinely confident initiative, almost inspirational. Quite like the mythical meek, we have inherited the earth on this matter as no piece of land is out of bounds.

What is initially cast in a lighter, or lightness, the vein becomes a far more serious subject as we grow up further, and a sense of entitled machismo takes over. Unstructured urination becomes a surrogate for other forms of dilettante behaviour, extending to rowdiness and sundry disorderly activities. Which, over time, borders dangerously in the terrain of disregard towards women, enacted in a lengthy continuum of unquestionable evils. An uncouth spontaneous act often veering towards a male-bonding ritual and thus a blaring red flag.

Sulabh Sauchalaya, designed by visionary Bindeshwari Dubey, has been given less credit than it truly deserves, for pioneering a chain of public lavatories, at a minor price. These include bathing arrangements as well, as the other public eyesore is the daily wash-and-brush from municipal hose pipes, a free facility enjoyed by not just the homeless. But it still has not provoked a sufficient alteration in attitudes, as the intuitive convenience of the nearest location, notionally concealed to prying public eyes, still attracts the on-the-go Indian male.

Behaviour experts will confirm that an indulgent attitude to minor expressions of abuse overtly propel the illegal excesses, and needs to be stabbed at the core. Just as routine verbal excretions may lead to a ghastly physical incident,  the legit stature of anywhere-anytime peeing is possibly the genesis of the Air India incident. Foremost, an expression of cultural entitlement, much before it can be construed as distress towards a lady, and this point needs to be carefully noted. Conceptually similar to driving recklessly, flaky pedestrians, loud public conduct and disregard for queues.

On peeing though, the solution is clearly to have a National Toilet Taskforce, mandated to build both physical and emotional foundations amongst the citizenry. Portable as well as permanent public lavatories must be deployed as per demographic distribution, and copious fines, both physical paying and digital shaming, be imposed on infringers. A citizen awareness campaign, potentially funded by Air India, must influence students, teachers and adults to consider public outpourings as sacrilegious as being naked on the streets, nothing less. Technology can come to the party, with a Google Maps addendum identifying the nearest public facility, with walking time which can be extrapolated to jogging, depending on immediacy.

To those who enjoy their liquids, beer or beans, here is a fluid tip from a seasoned practitioner. The peeing interim between drinks is not just a depletion of gravitas, but more importantly, a partial redemption of disablement and thus an underrated agent of normalcy. When performed diligently in a designated outpost, it represents multi-faceted civic accountability, and would have certainly protected the Wells Fargo career.