Sulabh suvidha

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Picture this: every time Zareena Begum needs to go to the bathroom, she has to walk across the lane, stand in a line, sometimes for as long as an hour during peak morning rush hours, pay a rupee "" and then she reaches her destination.

If the two tube wells installed in her slum colony break down and she is unable to bathe and wash clothes, this is what she does. She goes back to the public toilet, stand in the same queue, pays Rs two for bathing and, hold your breath, a whopping rupee for every cloth she washes.

If the tube well behaves itself and she doesn't need to bathe in the public toilet, she spends Rs 60 a month at the rate of two trips a day "" she and others like her have trained themselves to not go more often than that.

The bummer(!) is when someone in the family gets a stomach bug, which they all often do, given the lack of hygiene of their neighbourhood. "Even if the toilet thekedar sees that we're sick, and need to use the toilet every few minutes, he charges the same amount each time," said she.

Zareena's neighbour, Pushpa Devi, explained that the MCD built public toilets and leased them to private parties, who maintained them and were meant to charge a nominal sum from each user. "There should be a fixed rate for these toilets, instead of these private businessmen setting rates to maximise their profits," said she.

Her family was lucky to have a jhuggi situated over the Chirag Dilli drain, so they put an end to their loo problems last year by building a toilet that opened directly into the drain. Of course, they were blissfully unaware of its environmental consequences and the danger their toilet was, to public health.

The one good thing about the pay-and-go toilet is, Zareena and her neighbours said, was its cleanliness. "Even if we are paying through our noses, at least the place is clean," they said. The toilet-thekedar, they said had the toilets hosed clean "" once in 24 hours. But then, it was no wonder their standards were so low: their slum initially had a free-to-use toilet that the MCD sealed because it was never ever cleaned.

"So you pay at least Rs 300 per month for your four-member family, to use a toilet that's cleaned only once a day?" I asked, adding, "and that too not as often as you like, or should?" I realised they had no idea that people like us, blessed with flushable toilets, paid only a fraction of that amount for the same purpose, as part of our water bills.

I asked what changes they'd like in their public toilet. "We'd like the thekedar to fix an affordable monthly rate for using the toilet, perhaps basing it on the size of the family," said Zareena reasonably. At which Pushpa Devi piped up, "and he should make the toilet free for children and the elderly. That's the way this other public toilet two kilometers away, operates."

Just then, some more women joined the conversation and said in disgust, "why are you wasting your time talking about how to improve the toilet? Everyone says that after these elections, this slum and others in Delhi are going to be razed to the ground. Then there'll be no toilet, no roof over our heads, that's why this discussion is so futile!"

A helpless silence fell over the group, and as I left, I thought sadly to myself that it seemed near impossible for any of Delhi's slum problems to have a sulabh, simple solution.