“Toilet humour, or scatological humour, is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, urination, and flatulence, and to a lesser extent vomiting and other body functions. (It sees substantial crossover with sexual humour, such as penis jokes.)
Toilet humour is popular among a wide range of ages, but is especially popular with children and teenagers, for whom cultural taboos related to acknowledgement of waste excretion still have a degree of novelty. The humour comes from the rejection of such taboos, and is a part of modern culture.Examples can also be found in earlier literature, including The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The point is as children, we just laugh: there’s no correct way to laugh; there are no politically incorrect factors and toilet humour is just funny. It escapes all of us that to be human is to go to the toilet. Yet we don’t like to go publicly; no no not publicly but to be seen to go publicly. We sort of sidle away except on a flight one sort of announces to the world one’s intention. So we rather sit tight on our seats but give the game away as soon as we land and there is an unseemly rush.
Society seems to be divided into two: those who like Piku and those who couldn’t bear it to the point of walking out. Yet it is beautifully cast. The big B does not mind looking old and almost unattractive. The unlikely pair of PK and Irrfan actually do not even touch each other. One is reminded of teenagers fifty years back who dated without even holding hands.
The nuances: the faithful domestic who takes pride in the fact that he is indispensable; the throne on top of the car heralding its way over half of north India! There is no doubt that Indians firmly believe that all waste should be got rid of every single day and happy and blessed is the man who “goes” punctually without fuss. So it becomes a fetish if not an obsession especially when one gets old and there’s nothing much more to occupy oneself. The rest of us may just be too busy to notice?
But when one has to go one has to go. One heard of a very proper lady who could never go in the wild while travelling by car and was sort of looking for a suitable establishment while travelling in Kerala where it is really really densely populated.. So finally she just asked the driver to stop and went and knocked on a door ( with no response) and so she walked to the back and finding the back door open simply went inside all the time saying “ hello anyone there?” and relieved herself and got back into the car.
To this day she feels bad that she had not left a thank you note. One can only imagine the consternation of the family in finding such a note!
