If you are someone who travels by plane from time to time, you might be concerned by the growing proclivity of Indian men to urinate upon female co-passengers. Psychiatrists, urologists, and wildlife scientists around the globe have been grappling with the problem: what is it about being airborne in an enclosed, mixed-gender container that makes the middle-aged Indian male go weak at the bladder?
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I’ve spent weeks researching this question. What did I find? Well, as per the latest research being done at the Aarvard School of Veterinary Sciences, such behaviour is linked to deep insecurities about one’s masculinity — apparently the same set of insecurities that could make someone identify egoistically with a macho public figure to the point of servility.
Anyway, now the Supreme Court has asked the government to come up with an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to deal with such incidents. While our dedicated government servants are, no doubt, hard at work constructing an SOP for the airlines to follow, I’m afraid we are missing the wood for the woodpecker here. Rather than focus on damage control once the damage, so to speak, has occurred, shouldn’t we be focusing on prevention?
Wouldn’t it be far more helpful to frame an SOP not for the airlines, but for the Indian man? This would also be a more pragmatic approach, rooted in the understanding that not every Indian male is toilet-trained to international standards. Towards this end, I am sharing below a draft SOP — an SOPEE, let’s say — of rules, reminders and protocols that he could be made to memorise before every flight. Any Indian male boarding a flight anywhere in the world should henceforth be forced to clear a 20-minute written examination on the below guidelines before being allowed within 50 metres of an aircraft.
Things to remember when Nature calls mid-flight:
1. You are not a cow. No one else is interested in seeing, or being anywhere near, your urine, let alone showering in it.
2. Always urinate only in the designated area. On planet Earth, these places tend to have names. The names can be different in different time zones: ‘Gents’, ‘Toilet’, ‘Washroom’, ‘WC’, ‘toilette’, ‘toaleta’, ‘gabinetto’, ‘Salerni’, etc. Most men love ‘gabinetto’ — it’s where Julius Caesar went — but make sure you are in Rome before you do as the Romans did.
3. It is a truth universally acknowledged that an airborne male in possession of an overfull bladder must be in want of a toilet. The Indian male faces an additional challenge: how to differentiate a loo from a co-passenger. This is indeed a vexing question. Not everyone, especially in an inebriated state, can solve this puzzle easily. But there are strategies you can follow to ensure you never mistake the one for the other. Quick tips:
a. If the toilet is right next to your seat, it is probably not a toilet, it is a co-passenger. Avoid ‘going’ there.
b. If your toilet is wearing headphones, reading a book, or staring at a screen of some kind, it is highly probable that it may not, in actual fact, be a toilet.
c. If you had seen the toilet standing in queue during security check or boarding, it is probably not a toilet.
d. If the toilet has a door that says ‘Toilet’ or its equivalent (see 2 above), and when you open the door, there is a toilet bowl, toilet paper, dustbin, mirror, wash basin, and none of them are wearing any clothes, then congratulations — you are inside a genuine toilet! You can do your business there, but remember to lock the door first. If there is no provision to lock a door, then it is probably a co-passenger you are standing next to. Go back to your seat and ask for help.
4. Always sit down. Sitting down for such an important business is not a blotch on your manhood. Some men take undue pride in their ability to do it standing up — as if it’s some kind of a contest. It isn’t. Camille Paglia may have called it ‘the arc of transcendence’ but that doesn’t mean it’s your job to reproduce that arc every time Nature calls. If you follow the rule of always sitting down before you start, chances are your ‘toilet’ will give you a resounding slap if ever you make an error in judgement, thereby stopping you from committing an act of bladder terrorism.
5. If none of the above suits you, skip the plane and take a bus. Or better still, join a political party and travel by padyatra.
G. Sampath, the author of this satire, is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
