The right to poop and pee is equally fundamental
It was evening time. I was dropping off an employee near an office complex, when my stomach suddenly went, "Boom, boom, barm".
"Oh my god!" This wasn't happening to me. I had completely forgotten about the laxative I had popped early morning after days of constipation on account of a jet lag. And now without a warning, my stomach was churning full blast. I could feel the tremors rock through my body.
I looked around to figure out a place where I could find a toilet. A quick scan revealed that it would take me a minimum 10 minutes to get to a toilet. I would have to find a parking spot, a not so easy affair in that crowded office complex, then ask around for toilets, not to mention the possibility of waiting in a queue. My stomach was not in the mood for any such shenanigans. It was in a tearing rush.
My intelligent, problem-solving brain quickly thought about alternate possibilities. I drove around the corner to find a quiet spot. The plan was to find a secluded spot and do the needful in the privacy offered by the space between the two open doors of my car. But that was not destined. The street was packed with cabs waiting to pick their fare from the nearby offices.
By this time my stomach was screaming, my soul was howling. It was then that my eyes fell upon the shiny, black polythene bag resting on the back seat of my car. I smiled.
I parked my car in the quietest possible corner. I hurriedly picked the polythene bag, lowered my pants, and relieved myself into it.
Indescribable relief mixed with sharp pangs of guilt immediately hit me.
"What had I done? It was so sub-human? An action so disgusting that I could never share with anyone."
 |
| As Woody Allen succinctly put it, "nature and I are two". |
As a woman travelling everyday on city roads, and on other days on country roads, I have often been faced with untimely pee and poop challenges. But this one had taken the Royal Crown.
I remember a time, when I was driving back to office with my boss and another colleague after a client meeting. It was a long one and a half-hour drive back to the office, when in the middle of it, I was overcome by an overwhelming need to pee. I requested my boss to find a toilet. But was only greeted with mockery. I felt like punching my boss but being a vulnerable, young employee, I restrained myself. The next hour was straight from hell as my bladder continued its frantic dance.
My girlfriends and I have often stopped our car on service roads, opened both doors, and relieved ourselves between the doors against a stream of flowing traffic . A friend recently even suggested carrying a dhoti for added privacy.
In fact, I have often felt jealous of the dhoti/sari-clad woman (not talking about middle class or elite crowd). All they need to do is find an empty spot and sit down. No problem! Privacy ensured anywhere.
I have often heard it said, "Indian women are trained in reining in their urinary bladders". I have experienced and witnessed it all my life. I have grown among aunts and other women who were quite coy about their need to pee when male members were present. They would find a way to sneak out without catching attention.
An aunt of mine opened a shop in an area with no toilet facilities. The nearest toilet facility was 10 minutes away. Over a period of time, she developed an uncanny ability to go without peeing for 8-9 hours. The minute she would reach home, she would be squirming and dancing all the way to the toilet.
I understand that many female vendors - grocers, vegetable sellers, etc. in India have developed this unique ability, that doctors say may result in several gynaecological, urinary tract and kidney problems. As for me, I simply refrain from drinking water when outdoors.
I have sometimes wondered about people having an urgent need to pee in the middle of a presentation or a press conference or public performance. Do they put on a smiling face for the audience, but internally, are probably wrestling with this demon? How would it be, if for a change one of these public figures announces, "Hey wait everyone. I got to take a break". Will we find it inhuman?
I take heart in the fact that this particular problem is not limited to India. Recently when I was in the US, I felt quite exasperated, especially in the cities. Some of the cities hardly have any public loos. Restaurants have toilets for customers only, and each time I wanted to use their toilet, I had to either buy something or pay $2.
There was no other alternative. Peeing on the road can attract a fine of upto $500. I would rather pee in my pants. In fact a friend of mine living in the US carries several empty plastic bottles in his car while he is on the highway.
He says: "You never know how long the traffic jams are going to last. Or predict when the emergency is going to strike. So better be well-equipped."
Lucky men, women can't even do that.
It made me particularly angry to realise that parks and streets provide doggy bags to clean up after your dogs.
I thought, "Hey, wait a minute. Dogs have a right to poop wherever they want (well as long as you clean after them). What about human beings? They get fined. Seems civilisation has deprived us of our basic rights to pee and poop."
My conditioning is such that it is easy for me to feel ashamed and disgusted of my body's needs. To loathe myself and then to loathe others.
Honestly folks, I may be a civilised person but I possess the body of an animal. I do not yield full control over my body's functions - circulatory, digestive, nervous and excretory. Does this lack of full control translate into disgust and shame?
So after the poop incident, I looked into the mirror, and told myself, "Brave of you to do what you did. What other choice did the body really give you? So raise your head, and share proudly with others. So no other human be ashamed of his bodily functions."
"Be ashamed when you cheat someone. Be ashamed when you hurt someone. But never feel ashamed of your bodily functions."
The story of shame does not end with poop and pee episodes. Social etiquettes shame other natural bodily functions and habits such as farting, burping, nose-picking, menstruating, thumb-sucking and body odour.
According to research, an average person farts 14 times a day. Most of the farts happen while sleeping. Scientists tell us now that burping can be a psychosomatic condition that arises from nervousness.
A nose-picking research was conducted in 1995, by a pair of US researchers named Thompson and Jefferson. Of the 254 respondents, a whopping 91 per cent confessed to picking their noses. Five years later, doctors Chittaranjan Andrade and BS Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, India, compiled data from 200 teenagers. Nearly all admitted to picking their noses, on average four times per day. Adult thumb-sucking, considered to be infantile, is an undeniable reality.
The question that poses itself to me is, "Why is it difficult to acknowledge our animal bodies under the L’Oreal make-up and Armani suits? Difficult to accept my body's demands and habits?" If I cannot accept my own body and its needs, what else can I really accept about others and the world?
As I finished writing this piece, I came across an interesting book, Bodies in Revolt, by Ruth O Brien. Here is an excerpt:
The bourgeois liberalism suggested that the body was inferior to the mind. It insisted that the bodily functions be hidden from public view. The middle class fostered a conception of bodily shame. Having a lot of shame about our own bodies - and disgust too, a shrinking from contamination that derives from a deep ambivalence about our own animality and animal secretions, we seek to render our bodies less disturbing, and this frequently involves projecting our own emotions (writes the philosopher Martha Nussbaum).
Classical theorist Mary Russo argues that the grotesque body is "open, protruded, extended, secreting" as opposed to the classical body which is "monumental, static, closed and sleek". Russo further explains, "The shame and disgust of the body , which is unique to human beings, shows how people reject our animal kinship and even subordinate other humans arbitrarily defined as 'inferior' to prove our superiority."
For the bourgeois, the inferiority of women stemmed from the fact that they had so many more bodily functions than men. They had menstruation, gestation, lactation and labour. The absence of these bodily functions is what made men feel superior.
Our whole species is in peril, because we deny, defy and defile our animal kinship.
Or as Woody Allen succinctly put it, "nature and I are two".
Watch: