The other day I saw a well dressed man urinating into the sewage canal right in  broad day light..

             “Shame on you.  Civilised persons don’t do it?” I conveyed to him point blank.

             And the good  old middle age man turned the gun on me and asked, “Could you show me one public toilet on this road? Where do I go to relieve myself? This was an urgent case !  Eh?” He waited for an answer  but  I couldn’t give any.

              It’s indeed true, there are no public toilets in many of our cities in India. I wonder how  the various Corporations and Municipalities would defend themselves in this regard.

              Some years ago, I was  in Vietnam. In Saigon, (renamed as Ho Chi Min city)

the posh streets are lined  up with huge trees with bulging  trunks. Every male uses the trunks as open urinals round the clock and no one was blamed.  I don’t think things would have improved there even now.

               Muscat, a great city in Oman,  impressed me a  lot for cleanliness and upkeep.   While driving from the airport, I happened to ask my son, “Your roads are grand and  wide.  I don’t see any stragglers on the road.  And I don’t see any public toilets either..”

              Sonny replied that all people were at work.  As regards toilets, he said that one can walk into any Mall or a Restaurant for the needful.  How true?  I walked into a shopping complex and there I saw a  well maintained toilet with running water and attendants ready to help you.

              Defecating on public streets is viewed with contempt in almost all the  Western cities.  And people don’t practice  it also because of the existence of public toilets every 200-300 meters.

             But, not to worry.  Urinating  in the open  may not be  considered an uncivil act at all henceforth.  Human urine has found a place in the Sun.

              An Indian  news item says, that a certain student  working for her Doctorate, used human urine  as a kind of fertiliser to water the banana plants in a banana grove. The result was tremendous.  The output was more than double compared to the rest which received normal well-water.  The bananas were thick  and the bunch  itself was extremely heavy.  The lady student would be submitting her thesis shortly.  Surely, she would have tried this prescription on various types of plants as well,  like flower and  vegetable gardens and other fruit trees. We have to wait for the full research paper.

                Assuming that human urine is  more potent than ordinary water for growth

of anything green, I dread to think of the future. Urine surely would be in great demand.

The countries with huge population like India and China may have no problem producing the required quantity.  But smaller nations may have to  import the stuff !.

               The day is not far off when we would see sign boards such as “Urinate here, please.”  The concerned  place may be the road side where some saplings have been planted recently or someone’s front garden.  It’s very likely then that the public  urinals   may be completely dispensed with.  What for anyway?

                One might also see receptacles on the roadside with a direction, “Urinate here.  Don’t waste your urine elsewhere.”  The thing may be collected and used gainfully in  various  cash crop farms.   This might also enhance the employment potential.

               I am sure God would have foreseen this development  when He created the human beings.   And hasn’t it  taken us so many centuries to detect the power of human urine?

                So next time if you see  a man turning on his miniature  pipe at the road side, don’t call him names but advise him to do his job over some vegetation.  OK?

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                                                          By: Israel Jayakaran (Sweetgrace)