Of Biscuit Wrappers, Bullet Trains and Bio-Toilets

Of all my text books from primary school, the one closest to my heart was the colorful science text book full of vivid color pictures and fancily boxed fun facts. In comparison to the monochrome social studies and language books, the science book stood out like a beautiful rainbow full of promises… a beacon of hope in a color-deprived universe.  And of all the chapters in there, the very very multicolored seed dispersal chapter always looked best to me with its seeds of all hues, shapes and sizes, illustrated in different acts of getting dispersed.

Seed dispersal was (and is) a gargantuan affair. It could alter geographies, flora, fauna, perhaps…the course of life itself. And all those fine techniques nature chose to employ. How strangely impressive! Flying seeds, floating seeds, hooked seeds, sticky seeds, clingy seeds, chewy seeds, shitty seeds…  Ah well…that brings me to the crux of the matter. About time I began my post.

So… It’s one of those lull train journeys that is in progress, with me sipping hot tea that I’d bought from the pantry chai-waala doing rounds in the train. 
Upon getting up holding the empty plastic cup, the old man sitting at the opposite window offers to throw the cup outside the window for me. I politely refuse.

He - Where are you going to throw the cup?

Me - Dustbin of course, they must be having one somewhere inside the bogie….I think I saw one while on our way in…

Saying so I proceed on my quest for the dustbin inside the train bogie. After trying our bogie and both the bogies attached on either side of ours I realize morosely that my vision of having seen a dustbin on our way in was probably nothing but a figment of my imagination. As I slowly return with the plastic cup to my seat and sit down still holding it, I can sense the old man’s eyes on me, ardently anticipating my next move. The train slowly pulls to a halt at a station. I quickly crumple the cup and deposit it inside the polythene cover which already holds our wealth of biscuit wrappers and orange peels. Getting up, I proceed to the wash area.

A mom-son argument appears to be in progress beside the wash basin. The little guy, apparently in urgent need of a pee, is being advised by his mother to wait for another few minutes so that the train will start moving which according to her would be a more appropriate setting for attending such calls of nature while in transit. Choosing to bury the pun that came to my head concerning the different states of ‘motion’ I wash my hands and leave the scene immediately. 

The train chugs on passing through arid geography, cultivated land, thickets and settlements. My co-passengers are lost in their own worlds, with hubby looking as though he might drown himself in the music from his headphones and our little one, deeply engrossed in a picture puzzle from her Dora comic. My mind zooms back to the seed dispersal page from the old fourth standard ICSE science text book and hangs out there for a while… trying hard to recollect what was mentioned about the role of humans in seed dispersal!!...However, I find myself unable to come up with the recollection of a decent number of achievements being mentioned there on that front. Indignantly I discover that the role played by us humans in dispersing flora across the length and breadth of our country has been grossly ill-represented across educational texts throughout the ages. Not to forget the massive role played in bio-dispersal by the largest network of transport in our country that aids people and material movement all across the rugged Indian terrain, the Indian Railways! 

The image of a million mums mumbling wisely to their little ones to hold from parting with their 'gold' until the gaadi moves flashed bright and clear in my inward eye. 

Even distribution. Uniform dispersal. Nothing less, nothing more.
Or let's say, Clean Stations, Greener Nation!

What about the now almost fashionable hue and cry raised against the uncouth uncovered bottoms that populate the rural as well as urban rail sides at any given point of a day. Wordy flare ups beneath pictures of exposed brown bottoms squatting scummily beside railway lines have become a rage among us ‘Swachh’ social networking ‘Bharathians’. 

In the meanwhile it is to be duly noted that significant contributions to these express national manuring exercises are happening as much from within our moving trains as much as it is happening from the so-called 'unrefined' populace outside, for whom the concept of a toilet, or perhaps a home still remains a mere concept.

Like our trains our mindsets too remain untouched by progress. I’m certain that passengers in other truly developed and developing nations have the same needs and callings as ours, but I don’t think that people who run such systems in progressive nations leave the issue of effective waste disposal unaddressed while embracing growth and progress. There must certainly be a way…or ways; leaves we can take out of good books lying around. 

Rather than a Bullet-Train revolution, the need of the hour for our nation is a Bio-Toilet revolution. Only a massive waste disposal revolution can stop the largest network of travel in our country from becoming the largest open mobile sewerage system in the country, or perhaps, in the world.


And while I hoard away my biscuit wrappers to glory in an act of useless vengeance, and secretly dream of bullet trains tearing across our cityscapes someday, the dust-bin I thought I saw inside the train continues to haunt my mind, stonily remaining what it is… a figment of my imagination.

… and we chug on.


Check out the links below for a better understanding of the BIO-TOILET concept 
http://www.wockhardtfoundation.org/pro-bio-toilet.aspx
http://www.bio-toilet.org/

                                                           Pic Courtesy:  Google