clean india

Clean India

The government campaign to clean India is going full swing. I walk along a village road every morning. Here and there whitewashed walls line the road. Not much is seen of the original white as it is defaced by political slogans, posters half eaten by goats and unmentionable stains. (The paan stains are mentionable)!

Now in every available space, in blue paint these words can be seen, “Do not pass urine here. Urination banned.”( not paan). It has not really made a difference. The men just shifted their activities to the trees on the opposite side of the road. It makes it a little difficult to jog. After years of averting my eyes to the right, I now have to avert them to the left. (I also have to change the hand holding the dog and my whip.)

Each household is supposed to have a toilet. A number of them have been constructed with government funds. Nobody seems to use them though. Whole families are out in the paddy fields fertilizing the rice.

“Didn’t the government construct a toilet for you?” I asked a woman.

“Yes “ she replied, “we don’t like to use it. It needs to be cleaned. My two sons, their wives and children all live with me. Who is to clean the toilet? Also there is no water-----“

There is no public garbage container either so plastic or paper litter is building up on the side of the road.

In Hyderabad there are public urinals on the roads. In Hyderabad airport the toilets are very clean. There is a book kept outside where passengers are supposed to rate the services. No passenger even looked at the form. I saw plenty of entries. As I watched I saw the cleaners entering “5 for excellent service “ themselves along with some flight numbers.

In Chennai airport the cleaning staff has found an excellent way to keep the toilets clean—they leave only two toilets open and lock up the rest of them. The harassed passengers stand in long lines waiting to use the two toilets. When they get dirty and flooded they open another two. They are either government staff or unsupervised private contracted labour.

Its all very well to want a clean India, but can we have water and trashcans also please?

running the auroville marathon 2015

Running in Auroville

I’m really glad I am a female when my daughter and I go to marathons. Everyone needs to use the toilet before the race starts, as they have often driven long distances. The queue for the men’s toilets is  always very long (more men than women run) but we women are able to get in and out very fast. (That is probably why I saw two men watering the trees along the picturesque trail of the marathon)!

There was also a little six year old cutie (looked just like a Barbie doll) who was dressed in a pink track suit and very busy throwing a temper tantrum. Apparently there was supposed to be a kid’s run of 5 km. It had been postponed to February 15 (the next Sunday). This meant her father was running a half marathon, while she had to sit with her mother at the visitors center waiting for two hours (or longer ) for him to finish!

As I was trundling along (many people walk faster than I jog) I found that the trail was interspersed with cattle traps. I have a morbid fear of getting my foot stuck in one of those. At each trap I stopped, held the side with both hands and proceeded cautiously. At the second trap I found a young male runner resting on the bar doubled up and head down.

“Are you in pain? Is it cramps?”

“Oh no he said, I can’t move. I ran 5 km last month, it was easy, so I thought 5X4 is 20 so I signed up for the half.”

“Just put one foot in front of the other and keep pace with me, when we reach an aid station we can stop.”

The aid station was 3 km down the road. Unlike other marathons there were only two cyclists keeping tabs on the runners. Since so many people in Auroville cycle anyway, it was difficult to distinguish between  an ununiformed volunteer and a resident!

After the aid station and some spray on his legs, he plucked up enough courage to hobble the rest of the way!

Part of the trail was gravel and stones. My heart went out to the barefoot runners whose feet were beginning to give way.

There was burfi , chocolate, oranges , bananas electrolytes and water but the sun soon became merciless.

By the 18^th kilometer I started to dream of a hearty pongal and vadai breakfast.

At the 20^th km I realized that full marathoners (luckily not me) had to do  ANOTHER LOOP of the same muddy gravelly hot trail!

I struggled to the finish line really late to find NO MEDAL NO BREAKFAST  NOTHING!

My tired body did not feel “the joy of running!”

adventures with innerwear

Aventures with Shapewear

Marks and Spencer’s was having a 70% off sale—an event my daughter and I waited for with unbridled enthusiasm. Normally their stuff , though good, was so overpriced that we didn’t even enter the shop!

“Come,” said my daughter, there is a new thing called “shapers.”

“What is that ?”

She explained, ”everyone wears it. It pushes all this extra fat you have around your middle (She meant my paunch) and gives you a deadly shape.”

Actually it sounded a bit like the whalebone girdles women wore in the last centaury. Perhaps it was a more civilized and comfortable version of the same? I vaguely remembered reading an article about shapers. A woman decided that she wanted an eighteen inch waist. She wore some sort of garment ( probably a shaper ) for two years continuously. She developed heart burn, some sort of abnormality of her intestines and at 36-18-38 looked like a freak!

“All the movie stars wear it,” said my daughter.

I decided to look at the photographs on page 3 more carefully.

“You don’t need to wear it all the time, just when you go for weddings and stuff.”

Since my son was getting married, I thought it was a good idea.

The shapers were not on sale.

“Lets go,” I said.

“No” said my daughter, “try it on. That way I will know which size to buy when it is actually on sale. You have to take a size smaller than what you normally wear in clothes so that you look slim.”

That did not sound very comfortable. When she was not looking I took three, a size smaller, my size and a size bigger.

We went into the changing rooms. The smaller one did not go past my knee. I called my daughter and she managed to yank it off. We then tried the actual size. After a lot of tugging and pilling I managed to get it on.

“I can’t breathe. I am going to die,” I said.

“What ma, you make such a fuss!” With a lot of tugging we got it off.

“This will not work,” I said, “I am alone a lot of the time. Who will help me on and off with this thing?”

I had visions of being stuck in that choke hold for many hours, perhaps even all night?

We pulled on the last large one. The effect was unbelievable! It made no difference to my shape at all! The paunch, if anything, looked a little worse!

My daughter gathered up all the shapers and disappeared to return them.

“ I can’t understand this” she muttered, “perhaps over the years your fat has become hardened?”

 I started dressing again. To my horror, I   found that she had taken my upper inner wear and returned it!

Frantically, wrapped in a voluminous duppatta I sneaked out and explained my predicament to the lady at the counter. (My daughter had gone to the car). She allowed me to rummage in the “returned garments” basket. I fished out my personal item.

“That “ she said accusingly, “is Marks and Spencer’s innerwear”. She refused to hand it over.

“I wear only Mark sand Spencer’s, I bought  it several months ago, please smell it,” I said, “it has a combination of my deodorant, perfume and sweat. Just smell my kurta after that and see.”

She looked daggers at me, but she did smell both garments. (I don’t envy her job)!

“Okay,” she said, “its yours, you can take it.”

Hugging it to my chest, mentally cursing my daughter, never again wanting to be “shaped” I dressed and headed to the car park.