Women working outdoors in a male-dominated country give the concept of sanitation a very personal twist. Village women working in the fields are at least in a familiar environment, which even then may have a million hidden dangers. But for me, most of my women friends, and all those other women in various sectors who spend long hours on the road or in villages, fields and forest lands, finding a secluded, safe, spot to commune with nature, is an art.
Well, if the day is something like this — ‘heading to the field for two days, six-hour drive to reach the village, three hours in village plus neighbourhood, three-hour drive to rest house, one-hour meeting at rest house’ — how it translates in one’s head is: ‘hell, six-hour drive — will need to find two p-spots; better check with Meeta, she’d gone on that drive last time, she’ll be able to suggest something. Need some background on the village meeting. Hope there are trees en route. Hope it’s a real NBA village, else, hope the harvest isn’t in yet.’
Women definitely multi-think, no choice there. On regular routes one can even mark safe spots, although no spot is ever really safe, as tales of encounters with cattle and curious goats, or the occasional nettle plant, abound.
A multitude of women friends and colleagues — development workers, faculty, students and government officials who work in the field — have perfected the art of not drinking any liquids for up to 12 hours before the trip, and not needing the loo at all. Personally, I don’t think that works, and suspect it promotes UTIs. But if you’re the kind who says, what the hell, I need my fluids and I will go where I need, then one pretty much falls into the tiny category of women who are ostracised even by other women in the group. The hierarchy of ‘those who dare to go’ vs ‘those who hold it’ is subtle but very real. The general feeling is that the one who ‘goes’ has a thicker skin and an unlady-like gung-ho attitude. Thankfully, many men with whom one works do not melt with embarrassment if one needs to stop the car, and I’ve had a few sweet enough to mention wife and daughters and the problems of long rides — bless them.
On the other hand, there are always a few who turned away and died small deaths when one suggested finding a safe nook. The plus is that over the years, long drives on major routes have become much easier — even in northern India, where loos are usually terribly maintained.
Dhabas, in particular, have over the past few years woken up to the particular needs of women travellers, and have progressed from a corner of a field curtained off by filthy rags hanging a foot off the ground, to relatively clean, not-so-smelly toilets.
But in many regions there continues to be no chance of either cover or vegetation. Some areas have their unique characteristics.
Once, a group of us women, working on a book, met up in Mongolia. The hosts took us for a day trip to a village, a few hours drive out of Ulan Bator. I fell deeply in love with the country, it’s so amazingly beautiful and full of beautiful people. But there is this thing about it — it’s the flattest piece of land one has ever seen. It’s flat, flat, flat, like a tabletop, with a foot-high, thin grass cover in late summers. It was inevitable that sooner or later someone had to go. The problem was, there was no cover, or camouflage, and we were in a bus on that tabletop.
That’s when, following an intensely hilarious discussion we figured out why traditionally, in most regions, women wear large, long skirt-based dresses — Mongolia, China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Egypt. Skirts were the way to go. Even in Europe, it used to be skirts. Women could have only begun wearing trousers after sanitation systems came into being. And we all wore trousers, or some version thereof, at that point. The men at the meeting never did quite figure out why the women bonded so strongly during that visit.
Easy does itThankfully, things have been getting easier, Swachh Bharat or not. Hopefully our daughters, when they are travelling alone in buses in the remote corners of the country, or trekking across the deserts of Rajasthan as we did, will find safe corners when they need them. And, like us, they find men and women who are of the creed who understand and hold guard while they ‘go’. I hope my son grows up to be genuinely understanding of the problems a woman friend might face in the great outdoors. A helpful taxi driver, a decent colleague — people simply being nice makes life so much easier. Of course, they could get too nice too.
Years ago just after my marriage, on a trip through Rajasthan with my husband and a bunch of his very ‘happy’ all-male friends in a very crowded Maruti 800 the inevitable moment came. An animated discussion ensued, followed by the car screeching to a halt by the roadside. I had to tell the driver (and obviously everyone else too) that some ‘cover’, as in, roadside vegetation, would be required, which in Rajasthan, is not the simplest thing.
A comical 20 minutes followed, with heads sticking out of windows and guys pointing out various completely unsuitable ‘cover’, from the ubiquitous tall and thin eucalyptus that uselessly line some roads, to thorny bushes and garden hedges, beyond which there were, obviously, gardens and houses and people. Helpful comments of ‘just go, we aren’t watching’ didn’t work then, though they might now. With age, some things in life really do become so much easier.
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