The outlet of the retail chain in our neighbourhood is convenient and we go there often. Recently, while moving down the aisles I felt thirsty and picked out a soft drink in a tetra pak and started sipping through the straw that comes with it. On finishing, I carefully kept aside the empty pack in my shopping basket as it had to be billed.
At the counter I was in for a shock. The clerk was put off by the sight of the pack, said it was etho (jhootha, meaning already tasted, so unclean), billed it without touching it and asked me to throw it away. Deeply embarrassed, I picked it up and asked where the waste bin was. His reply was even more perplexing. There was none within the outlet for etho jinish (jhootha stuff) and pointed towards the glass front door for me to go out and throw the pack away.
I felt relieved as I went out to find the waste bin. There was a table and a few chairs outside for people who bought kababs from the kabab counter which was part of the outlet and wanted to have it there itself. But there was no waste bin. The security guard at the glass door was surprised by my helplessness and pointing generally towards the pavement and road, said, "Throw it there."
Throughout the day people who have the kababs throw away the paper plates and wrappings on the pavement from where they are swept away, not every so often but at least early in the morning when the municipal sweeper does his daily sweep of the road and pavement.
The same Hindu way of life, which lays such great store by personal cleanliness so that the checkout clerk will not touch the empty soft drink pack, does not equip the management people of the chain who visit the outlet daily to order installing of a waste bin on the pavement to ensure that the public space is kept clean.
On a recent visit to a rural district I caught up with the local administrative big shot, the BDO (block development officer), to find out how various people oriented schemes were going. He proudly asserted that, yes, every school had not just a toilet but a separate one for girls. I felt as happy with his reply as he did.
But my next question had him look doubtful. How many of these toilets were functioning? He did not know. It was the school's job to make sure they were not damaged (the doors, for example) and kept clean. But, he subsequently admitted that while the budgetary provision for a school took in the cost of sweeping and keeping the place clean, there was no sanction to employ that other kind of sweeper who could clean a toilet. And, no, it was not the duty of the teachers to organise themselves and the students so that they could themselves keep the toilets clean.
The big ancestral house where I grew up had one imposing main door at the centre of the façade and another small one by the side - the first one for everyone and the second one for the sweeper or jamadaar who came in to clean the toilets and take away the garbage. When the elders gave him some leftover food or his monthly dues they were careful not to touch his palm. He was an untouchable. My mother rationalised it by saying it was just hygiene. He was physically dirty, as his job was dirty.
Decades later, when I joined fellow scribes in sessions with the architect who was designing for our housing cooperative in Gurgaon, there were useful inputs like the need to make the kitchen spacious and well lighted. But there was also the slightly knotty problem of fitting in a second entrance to every house. Why? For the sweeper, of course, who came in to clean the toilet and take away the garbage. He couldn't possibly use the main entrance.
Eventually a back lane (with back entrances for houses) between every two rows of houses was devised for both the sweeper and the fire engine. The architect was very particular that it should be wide enough to let the latter in when an emergency arose. Firemen should be able to enter houses both from the front and back. But even that was a quarter century ago.
In the modern apartment block were I now live, there is only one entrance to every apartment. We put the garbage bin out late at night for the sweepers to take its content away and eventually cart the collected garbage to the nearby municipal vat. Those who still use the services of a sweeper to clean their toilets must let him in through the front door - the only entrance there is. Some of us who have got into the habit of cleaning our own toilets have become so finicky that we are loathe to use the services of a sweeper. Keeping a modern bathroom-loo sparkling is an art. This is progress, if you like.
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