09/08/2026
For some reason, every time something weird happens to remind me how extremely callous we are as a nation about women's toilet needs, especially outside their residences, I come to this page. Women and Public Toilets seems to have become the thematic focus of this page, at least for now. So ...
Sometime in early June, I heard my doorbell ringing quite insistently on a week-evening. I certainly wasn't expecting anyone, and was in the middle of some serious writing work - like a proposal or a report or something. Naturally, I walked to the door with a feeling of marginal indignation, and asked: "Who's it, please?" "Just someone random", answered a young female voice. I was intrigued enough to open the door, though that's pretty much what residents of where I live are repeatedly advised not to do. Two young kids, in their late teens or early twenties, stood with anxiety writ large on their faces. "Aunty, is it possible to use a toilet here, please?" - blurted out one of them before I could even ask what they wanted. "Well, this is a home not without toilets, I assure you - so come on in." ... And they ran in before I could finish my sentence.
The needful done, they drank some water I'd offered, thanked me profusely, and left with this comment: "Aunty, in your house, we could at least see a calling bell that we could reach easily ... That made us feel you might open your door to us. Most people wouldn't, we know."
As they left, I was left with my own musings about where we are as a nation, where women's mobility is concerned. Clean public toilets are a rarity, of course, but then - plenty of Indian men consider public roads to be their urinal when needed, and to urinate in full public view a birthright. Also, there are definitely more open urinals meant for men than public toilets that women can also use. So ...
I think the climax happened within about a week of this. One of my colleagues and I were engaged in a research assignment that needed us to spend extensive time in some villages of a district adjacent to Kolkata. Travelling by local train meant once out of the house, there was no scope of using a toilet until we could walk to a decent cafe/restaurant providing that facility. On one particular day, we literally had to argue sternly with the local field person who was helping us - a young man - that we could NOT finish the work at a go, that we needed a lunch break to travel to the more urban part of that block - less to satisfy our appetite, and more to empty out bladders. What surprised me was not that the young man hadn't anticipated this need, though both he and our toto-driver had relieved themselves in between. And, they were not the ones who had started at 7:30 in the morning. What left me almost without words is that this young man, a social sector worker, insisted that we could finish the remaining interviews and then go - even when we spelt out in unequivocal terms that we needed to use a toilet. With what sensibilities do we raise our sons, I was left wondering.
Aparajita Dhar Arpita Ghosh Trina Mukhopadhyay Trisha Sarkar Nabadeepa Samuho Abhisikta Dasgupta Lopamudra Pal
