Cleanliness

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India is a very funny place for us to get used to but the aspects that sticks out the most are the practices and ideals surrounding cleanliness. People devote a lot of time to keeping the environment clean here. Sweeping the streets and alleys, washing dust and grime off of everything and shoveling up cow pies. It is in some ways a very clean place and in others very very gross. I try to be non judgmental but when i see folks burning garbage in giant piles or shitting on floors they shower on, as well as wiping floors with cloths that are moved by their feet then in turn used for my dinner table, i cannot help but get a little irked.

Indians destroy their bathrooms. Yes that is a generalization and its true! For a country that barely has plumbing, the pipes that are here get more that their fair share of use. This is exemplified when you walk by a cracked above ground sewer pipe and can see the colour of the liquid spraying vertically out of it. The last hotel we stayed at before we landed in Goa was flooded with 5 cm of water in the mens bathroom. From the shower stalls to the squat toilets... flooded. I took to using the restaurant facilities at that point. One day as i walked by the bathroom door a local man was so disgusted with the conditions he had to check all the squatters before he found one worthy of defiling. You just have to shrug it off though because when you gotta go, you gotta go.

An estimated one billion people live here in an area about the size of quebec so that presents a lot of sanitary issues. But when i see people sweeping their sidewalks into the grime and shit filled gutter and then lighting them on fire so the smoke can fill the street and the neighbouring homes, i get queasy. Far am i from ever telling them what to do with their garbage; you just have to accept a lot of what transpires around you in a foreign culture and shrug it off happy in the fact that we aren't burning leaves and plastic curbside in canada. But part of me just wants to try and express to people here how bad it is for them. Any one who has traveled to a foreign land can tell you that letting locals know how backwards they are is a terrible way to make friends however.

For now we are in a small beachside village with a less than 20,000 people and lots of clean facilites so my nose and usually strong stomach are pleased for the reprieve. There are still garbage piles on fire everywhere but the constant breeze from the sea carries the smoke quickly away almost unnoticed. As much as this post is on the negative side, the fact that ANYTHING AT ALL functions in this country is a testiment to the unending hard work of millions of indians trying to preserve their land and culture amidst drought, occasional blackouts, extreme poverty, and cows... lots and lots of cows shitting everywhere.

Brian and Jenna go to beach now...


p.s. many of our friends back home appear in our dreams randomly... but the dreams take place mostly in india. it is a bizzare mental crosswire

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Comments

[Richard Russell]

Sounds about right.
Oh man, that sounds like my own personal hell. I know that life will in time teach me to live with squalor, but at the moment it still really fucks with me. I guess that's why I usually travel to places with low population density, next stop The Arran Islands! I'm in your debt for updating so regularly, it brightens a rainy March day to think of you guys kickin' it on a beach in India.

[Snehansu]

Infra
Urban planning in India has always been very reactive. People rush to different cities in search of opportunities and the cities are barely able to cope up with this influx. As a result of this infrastructure in terms of roads, sanitation, lodging ,communication everything works under maximum load. As it crumbles civic authorities try to make some amends. Combined with this locals and all those who are traveling are least respectful of anything that that is not personal or religious. Cleanliness is practised only inside and not outside. Be it a beautiful lakeside or a wonderful hill station , no one wants to carry garbage back. In the absense of a proper garbage bin , they drop it anywhere and everywhere. Somehow I feel that with some good advertising ( like Athithi Devo Bhava / Incredible India ads) by Aamir Khan, certain sections of the domestic tourists have started appreciating the clean factor. But its a long way to go in the towns and cities where residents are living in filthy conditions and huge slums stay put. I write a blog and a few days back I posted a few notes on this "http://travelpi2.blogspot.in/2012/10/traveling-with-responsibility.html". Let me know if you have any suggestions.