by Kailash Khandelwal

Before relocating to the USA, I spent a few months there on a freelance project, living an ordinary 9-to-5 life. Those routine days gave me a chance to quietly watch, notice, and absorb a few small, mundane things about America. At the time, I did not realize how deeply those passing observations would stay with me. That became clear only after I returned to India for a short break.
One morning, from my ground-floor office, I saw a spotless car with tinted windows and a military government light on top pull up across the dusty road. It was clearly no ordinary vehicle. It carried rank and authority. A military vehicle had not been seen in that marketplace in ages, so its arrival caught everyone, including me, by surprise.
 
A woman, perhaps in her fifties, stepped out and came briskly toward me. Through the hastily closing car door, I caught a glimpse of a gentleman in decorated military dress seated inside.
“Bhaiyya, I need to urgently use the toilet,” she said. Her English was flawless. Her manner was polished. Sensing her urgency, I quickly led her to the executive-only washroom inside my office.

Ours was the only office in that area with proper flushing toilets. Even there, true to Indian hierarchies, one set was for executives and another for the general staff. Strangers were allowed in only if someone vouched for them. Amid the area’s encroached roads, a few filthy corners, including the far end of our building, had become places where marketplace visitors and local menial laborers answered nature’s call. To keep them away, some walls carried humiliating warnings. In a few places, religious calendars were hung as deterrents. Almost every week, quarrels broke out over public urination on private property. There would be shouting, abuse, and threats. Yet it never stopped.
We agreed that the problem lay in a lack of civic sense. Yet trying to instill it seemed like a task too complex for one lifetime. Public humiliation and even physical reprimand were treated as acceptable solutions until civic sense could somehow be enforced in some distant, unforeseeable future.

As the military vehicle prepared to leave, I found myself wondering how long the lady could have held on.  My mind went back to the public toilet facilities I had seen in the USA, where a restroom is usually close by—whether you are in a shopping area, near an office block, or along a highway. Most of the time, it is clean and accessible. Having one nearby is simply taken for granted.


How did they do it?

Now, after living in the USA for many years, I can see how planning, built on a practical partnership between the public sector, private businesses, and corporations, has tackled the issue nationwide. What had seemed insurmountable in my small marketplace in India had been addressed across the length and breadth of the USA through a public-facilities-first approach. America showed me that human ingenuity, when backed by will and planning, is powerful enough not only to find solutions, but to implement them at scale.
There has been a paradigm shift in my thinking, and I am now a strong advocate of a public-facilities-first approach. I no longer react with anger to videos or pictures of public urination; instead, I remember the urgency written so plainly on that lady’s face. I also think of a friend who often travels to India and spends long hours in marketplaces; he carries medicines to suppress the urge.
 
A gas station owner I knew told me that keeping the toilets clean was an unwritten but mandatory part of customer service. It was hard, thankless work, he would often say. Customers took clean restrooms for granted. In all his years, he had hardly heard a word of thanks, nor had he ever expected any thanks.
 
From the corner of my eye, I saw the military vehicle move forward and then stop. The officer in the front seat, who seemed to be the PA, stepped out and walked toward me. As he approached, he nodded in greeting and said,
“Saheb asked me to convey his many, many thanks.”