Posted on 06/21/2014 4:12:25 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
It's early morning and local commuters are queuing up for tickets at the Kirti Nagar railway station in the Indian capital, Delhi.
Along the tracks, another crowd is gathering - each person on his own, separated by a modest distance. They are among the 48% of Indians who do not have access to proper sanitation.
Coming from a slum close-by, they squat among the few trees and bushes along the railway tracks and defecate in the open.
To many, this is a daily morning ritual despite the hazards of contracting diseases such as diarrhoea and hepatitis.
It can be even more hazardous for women since each time a woman uses the outdoors to relieve herself, she faces a danger of sexual assault.
Recently two teenage girls from the state of Uttar Pradesh were gang-raped and found hanging from a tree after they left their village home to go to the toilet. Their house, like hundreds of millions of others in the country, did not have any facilities. 'No privacy'
A new World Health Organisation (WHO) report says more than half a billion people in India still "continue to defecate in gutters, behind bushes or in open water bodies, with no dignity or privacy".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
“Let’s be honest - many of their countrymen who come to the States have some of these same (read: lower) standards of hygiene. And many of these new arrivals are buying up hotels and motels and applying this same standard of cleanliness which is to say no standard at all. ANYTHING that costs money - A/C, water, soap, etc. will be rationed as if the war were on. These are some grasping, greedy buggers.”
Here in NJ they also run gas stations and of course convenience stores; in fact, they meld the two (converting mechain bays to a convenience store because the caste that runs the gas stations isn’t the same caste that would fix cars). Try using a bathroom in these places; I believe they are required by law (especially if you sell hot food), and yet they are always “out of order” (probably because the merchant caste shouldn’t be cleaning bathrooms either). All of the air pumps at these places cost $.75 to a $1 (I couldn’t imagine this when I was a kid riding a bike); the last American-owned gas station in a neighboring town got rid of their “free air” months ago.
Fundamental transformation...
Same criteria for me. We settled in Montana on the side of a mountain; six miles out of town and three miles up a gravel road. Internet was slow at first but now have 12 mbs by microwave.
We hear gunfire daily, from our range and several of the neighbors. It’s the sound of freedom ... and we’re getting to be pretty good shots!
Our small town had a pastor who was well-known that he had 12 children. One day, a man was visiting the church and greeted him and said “I wish I had 12 children”
The pastor said “oh I don’t think you know what you are saying.”
Yes I do, replied the man, “I have 13!”
People try to paint India as an exotic, colorful, but crowded place.
This shows the reality of it as a filthy soul crushing place.
I will go out on my run this morning. I will pass beautiful yards on clean clear bike paths and see lush green yards and trees.
Makes know I am VERY LUCKY to live in this GREAT nation.
Nothing like it in the world...it's true freedom!
I remember seeing photos of a public toilet somewhere in Africa, think it was South Africa. It was on the side walk in the open though there was a curtain rod, but no curtain on it. You can give people things, yet fixing ignorance (aka lack of knowledge) can be more difficult. You have toilets, you need septic systems, you need plumbers to maintain them, etc.
Same here. Two facts: (1) Living in the country has it's privileges (2) The probability of being yelled at by wife for missing the target or backsplash is less when taking it outdoors. :)
“Indians “bathe” in the Ganges River, which health officials call a cesspool and toxic waste dump.”
I posted this on another thread a while back: A few years back police in a neighboring town were dealing with a dozen cars broken down along a particular stretch of road along a river here. They noticed that all of them had recently purchased gas at the same unbranded, Indian-operated gas station. When they showed up there, the owner said the tanker driver must have left the caps off the underground tanks when they were filled, and water had gotten in. After determining he had to fix the cars, they were called back to the same area an hour later by neighbors who smelled gasoline. The enterprising Third Worlder had run a hose to the Passaic River to drain his watered-down gas...
While they are cheaper than name-brand gas stations, anyone who uses these places is crazy; I stopped twenty years ago when my car was stalling and a mechanic, upon finding out where I had last gassed up, told me to avoid those places. I did, and never had those problems again.
So you live on a boat? lol
“I will go out on my run this morning. I will pass beautiful yards on clean clear bike paths and see lush green yards and trees. Makes me know I am VERY LUCKY to live in this GREAT nation.”
Immigrants are fundamentally transforming NJ and other states as we speak; they have metastasized.
Do you live in Cripple Creek? Colorado?
Is this like the wild bears and the woods thing?
“India is an odd place, so much poverty, and so many brilliant, industrious people.”
While many people from the Third World are no doubt industrious, that often doesn’t mean they are brilliant. While many Asians are hard workers, they tend to lack a creative streak that leads to innovation. I’ll concede another country has “so many brilliant people” when they no longer see any point to coming here.
I have a friend who is Indian. I met him at work. When I was looking for alternatives to America, I asked him about India.
He adamantly insisted that would be a horrible idea. He told me that as corrupt as America has become, it is 1% of what India is. He told me you need to pay every official you meet, to do their job, to not enforce AGAINST you, and so on.
Nope, Mititiagan.
At least they are using gutters now. My dad said they would squat and drop right in the middle of walkways during the WWII.
We spent a couple weeks roaming India last winter. Yes, people seem to “crap up” their environment. However, there are few “facilities” for people to use. That may be an explanation, but maybe they should build some facilities for use. Also, the cow is sacred there so they are plopping “offerings” everywhere. On the plus side people gather and dry those and use them to cook their food over. We did see a trio of outside mens’ urinals built into the side wall of a building out in the open...open air and all that. People would just walk up and pull out (if you know what I mean). Those using it even didn’t mind if I took a picture of that “facility”.
India is quite an interesting place...to visit. Living there would be like entering another dimension...a wild and whacky dimension. The whole idea of hygiene (public and private) is really odd there.
Amen to that, FRiend.
About a month ago I was in the restroom at a local mall. I picked up some paper in the area by the sinks and put it into the trash. While doing that task, I mentioned to a black woman in the room, “I do not understand why women are so messy with their paper towels and miss the trash can and never bother to pick the towel up and put them into the bin.”
Her response was this, “I know. Last week a woman came into the bathroom and proceeded to defecate on the floor next to the toilet. Then walked away and we had to clean it up.”
So this lady was an employee, and had to clean up that mess. She was shaking her head when she told me.
Since I live in the upper Midwest this was a new sort of wrinkle to me.
“Since I live in the upper Midwest this was a new sort of wrinkle to me.”
—
I live in the Northeast and that is new to me also.
Disgusting.
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