231. India- Treading on Egg Shells

Delhi Airport

I am writing about India on this blog because these are just my personal impressions and have little bearing on “The Real India” blog which goes into depth about various aspects of India. 

As is known, the nature of humanity is not only complex or devoid of frailty: so what we take for granted on our own doorstep is seldom the case on someone else’s doorstep, especially if that particular doorstep is almost ten thousand miles away from yours. 

Toilet in Delhi Airport

As I was cleaning the bathroom yesterday, I recalled how impeccably clean the toilets were at Delhi airport.  Ten years ago you would need a peg to put over your nose if you so dared to come into the vicinity of such facilities.  The lady attendants were sweet and gentle as is characteristic of the majority of the female species in India.  And the idea that there was a special cast set apart just to clean other people’s intestinal waste,  to me, at that moment seemed a matter of incredibility.

Entrance to toilets in Delhi Airport- No cleaning problem!

This is better seen in homes, where the lady of the house has a retinue of “servants” to do such menial tasks, something unheard of in our part of the world where, be it male or female, we have to do our own washing, dust furniture, flush out toilets and so on. 

Of course the rich or the hotel and catering services in our western society employ people who do their dirty work for them, but they are not called “servants”, that went out with Queen Victoria days.  Such people have “categories” such as housekeeper, nanny, house-help, nurse, gardener, cook, waiter, secretary and so on.  I wonder what we call our toilet cleaners- ecological removers? 

Streets of Delhi- A cleaning problem??

Well, that does not present itself as a problem for most of us, as we don’t have a category set aside specifically for such beings, since the majority of us common mortals, if we have any respect for the dignity of others, do our own shit shifting- though in some parts of our South, it does not seem to be quite the case.