Once Upon A Time, When There Was No Toilet in Our House

And going to the toilet at night was an adventure in itself.

The house where I grew up didn’t have an indoor toilet, initially. And no bathroom either.

There was an outdoor bathroom and a separate toilet at the end of the boundary of our property, far away from the building.

Well, it’s not that the property was huge but big enough to give you discomfort to walk to the bathroom or toilet every time you had to, especially during the night.

My father along with his two siblings and widowed mother had become immigrants when the British divided India into India and Pakistan based on religion. I wrote about this in this other article.

So they lost all they had, migrated to India, and started all over again.

Initially, they were on government support, and then finally my father and both his siblings managed to complete their education despite all the challenges and were all settled.

So by the time I was born, there wasn’t much sign of struggle left. The house that we lived in was otherwise comfortable and much more bigger and spacious compared to most houses in the neighborhood.

Except for the toilet.

And that was apparently quite normal in those days to have a bathroom and a toilet to be outside the house. It was considered as something impure to have it inside, so you had to trek outside in rain or shine to mind your business.

The bathroom had a tubewell through which you could pump water and a bucket and a mug for a shower. The tubewell looked something like this.

The toilet was worse. It was a small enclosed box-like structure, behind the bathroom, at the very end of the property amidst tall trees.

You had just barely space enough to go inside, turn and sit on the toilet and close the small double doors. Mind you, it wasn’t the western style WC you see everywhere. It was the Indian-style toilet which was basically placed on the floor.

And if you have never seen an Indian-style toilet, it might be really challenging for you to imagine what it is like and I don’t have any pictures of it.

There were two steps on two sides of that damn hole and you had to turn right on top of that and then sit. It was extremely dangerous. I don’t know how parents did any potty training those times.

There was no space for any other person to come and help. So even a child, would have to somehow learn it and use it safely.

I dreaded going to that toilet and especially at night. It meant opening many doors and unlocking many locks. And there was no light in the backyard.

It would be usually pitch dark, my father carrying me and my mother holding a torch, climbing down, and unlocking doors one by one. There were big trees and at night it felt absolutely creepy.

There were sometimes thieves and burglars as well hiding in the dark, trying to attack you when you are hurrying to the toilet.

My aunt used to tell me stories of ghosts and other-worldly stuff and I would absolutely freak out if I had to go and pee during the night.

Despite all these, I still felt grateful that our property had a wall on every side and that there was no graveyard nearby.

I also felt grateful that my father moved to India. An old aunt of mine, who was almost my grandmother’s age, used to tell me stories of their house before the partition.

They had a huge plot of land and her mother-in-law was cremated in the property. So to go to the bathroom, she would have to cross the place where her mother-in-law’s ashes were still scattered.

She was a newly-wed bride and couldn’t tell anyone how terrified she was. She wouldn’t eat anything after dark, not even drink water lest she might have to use the bathroom.

I felt grateful that I didn’t have to live there.

My mother’s parents' house also didn’t have a bathroom or a toilet inside. But at least, they didn’t have giant trees looming creepy shadows. And their house was in the hip and happening place of Calcutta — lovingly called Tollywood — because of the film industry.

Besides, although their house was huge, almost like a castle, with so many hallways, doors, alleys, secret rooms inside rooms, and several outhouses, they didn’t any lawn or backyard. Everything outside was also paved, so somehow it felt less creepy.

Thankfully, in a few years, my parents built bathrooms and toilets inside the house and my agony about going for a nature’s call at night came to an end.

This has been a lesson in gratitude for me.

Later in life, whenever I have felt entitled or cribbed about not having enough, I would remind myself about my childhood days.

I have seen my father doing that. Every time he saw us wasting electricity by leaving fans or lights on while we were in other rooms, he would tell us how he had spent his childhood when he had no electricity.

I didn’t quite understand him at that time and got annoyed sometimes wondering what’s the fuss? But I realize today that he was remembering his past and feeling grateful too for all he had.

I live in a comfortable house now. I have had toilets even inside the bedroom, which you would call a master suite in the USA. In Europe, where I live now, I haven’t really seen a master suite, and I sometimes do get annoyed that the toilet is inside my bedroom.

I still have to get up, walk a few steps, maybe ten or so, to come to the hallway, switch on the light, and then another two or three steps to the toilet.

Sometimes I also get annoyed that there is not enough space for another toilet. We have one full another half bathrooms and we are only three people, but in the mornings, when we are all getting ready together, I crib that we should have a bathroom for each person.

I have both a shower and a bathtub but I still get annoyed at what I don’t have, for example, a bigger walk-in shower space with a rain-forest shower or a marble tile, two vanities, more storage space. And the list goes on.

Then I remind myself about my humble past.

In this other story of mine, I mentioned we had no heating or running hot water and writer Art Bram found it surprising. I am not sure what you will think when you find out that there was not even a WC in the house.

In case you didn’t know, there are still villages in India (not just houses), that still do not have any toilets. The villagers, especially the women have to go to the nearby forests or bushes at the crack of dawn before the sun rises to relieve themselves so that no one can see them.

If you live in the comfort of the western world, next time you complain about not having a big enough walk-in closet or a two-car garage, please think about the plight of these people in other parts of the world.

And you will realize that:

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” — Melodie Beattie.

Thank you for reading.

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