Dilli badnam hui...

That is what the CNN-IBN is happily saying:
Dilli badnam hui darling tere liye.

I thought the height of absurd statements was Lalit Bhanot's sage pronouncement:
"The standards of our hygiene is different from theirs."

One of the most enduring memories of my hostel days is the dark and dank and smelly toilet. I simply do not know how I managed the two years at Baroda but it was terrible.  Toilets, for me, have to be clean and airy and light.  But Indian toilets are generally afterthought...something we need but prefer to push it out of sight.  Of course cleaning toilets is anathema to us. Forget what Gandhi said or did, it is simply not done because we, you see, do not clean toilets. There  are special people to do so. One of my acquaintances once said to me that he does not clean toilets and he did not see what was big deal for Infosys Chief and his wife to highlight this aspect of their life. I was little stunned. I was about to ask as to who cleans up the toilets in his house but I bit my tongue in time.

When I moved into my current residence, which by the way is currently dripping water thanks to the incessant rains and 150 years of excellent work by CPWD, the toilet was a sight to be seen. The first thing I did was to get a bottle of Harpic and scrub the toilet till it was usable.  Why do we do such things?

The toilets in our School are no better.  I finally had to post a stinker of a note before the girls started behaving themselves. Even now we keep the Western toilet locked up because we figured that many girls do not know how to use it.

There is no question of their hygiene and our hygiene. Simply put-toilets have to be clean. It is good sanitation and key to prevent health problems. The sooner Lalit Bhanot understands this point the better.

Meantime, Dilli badnaam hui darling tere liye.

I think I am going to enjoy the CWG.