Thursday, November 5, 2009

Tch! Tch! Toilets in Mumbai stink:(

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First of course, the biggest problem in this city is that there are not enough toilets for its populations. So, the city stinks as a whole.
Then, last year or so I read the amazing news that builders were thinking of dispensing with providing toilets in low middle class homes and the flat-buyer will have to do it up himself. What a stupid suggestion. However, with the recession,that sort of clout the builders weild in the city (where they can say free parking and charge a bomb or say parking for all, and not provide space for cars) has been hit. So even if they wished they cannot carry off the devious plan of making Mumbai more dirty than it is -- because the market has shrunk so much they are giving away free furniture  for the buyer who is not going to be too happy to get a house without a toilet.

Any case, all my years in Mumbai I have never visited a Churchgate or VT station loo just for the dread of it. When I came to city, and though I could see the gold beneath its crap-strewn pavements, I was overwhelmed by just how dirty it was. Spit and crap so much all over that its citizens had simply stopped reacting.

However, all this all of you already know. I am cribbing about the fact that toilets are so bad in established places.
Here is a list I recently visited:
  • Ravindra Natya Mandir -- 
* Absolute horror. We paid Rs 300 per person for the ticket. But paisa vasool only for the artist performance. The rest of what the center provided was pure crap:  The flush was leaking, so water was all over the floor. There was no place / peg where one could hang a bag -- an essential for women who all carry handbags. So should we place it on the floor which is so leaky, wet and soiled over?
*  Even more drastic: no lights in loos. Only central lights burning. The toilet door is high. So, if you shut it you cannot see anything, including where the toilet seat is!!
* No dust bins in loos. Where does a woman drop her sanitary napkin? If in the toilet, then it should flush. Since it was not flushing, then imagine how horrible for women who want to change sanitary pads.. Terrible... in the dark, not seeing a thing, holding on the bag, changing the pad  -- Inhuman.

So, if using the toilet, u must keep the door open and struggle about 

Nehru center: Nice and functional.

Tata Theater: Good, neat and has hooks, lights, and everything

In Orbit theater: Great loos. But the cleaning girls can be a bit aggressive: they will push the brush into where you stand. It is some atavistic anger-release for them I guess. But since the loos are clean, I normally suffer the indignity of such misdirected aggression.

Oberoi Mall: Same as above, including the cleaning girls. Its a tribe thing I guess:)

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