Cross-border urinating

A strange practice, among the armed forces of India and Pakistan who are posted to their respective forward posts, has been going on for several years. It involves soldiers from both sides urinating on the border signposts of the other by crossing the no-man’s land.

Army officials who admitted this to DNA say it amounts to a show of anger and disrespect for the other side “and both sides have been at it for years now to express what they feel for the other”.

However, if urinating on border signposts of a country that has gone to four wars with us so far, achieves patriotic significance, then our army must know there are millions of Indians who are showing such disrespect to their own motherland – everyday, throughout the day, all through the year.

Public urination has become such a general practice that perpetrators are willing to resort to the nuisance and blame civic agencies for the lack of facilities; but little does it occur to them that this habit demonstrates a mark of disrespect for their own fellow-countrymen.

Not just disrespect for the repulsive feelings generated among those forced to watch this nuisance by the roadsides; it also indicates indifference among the perpetrators towards the well-being of their fellow-citizens.

It happens this way: according to Dr Rajiv Moger, consultant, internal medicines, Apollo Hospital, a person who urinates in public spaces is actually not vulnerable to any health problems. But his actions can infect others.

“Urine contains bacteria. At times, the person urinating may have urinary tract infection. And if this contaminates the drinking water many people get exposed to the bacteria, leading to respiratory and gastro intestinal infections,” he says.

Public peeing is utter disrespect to nation
We Indians have been adept at personification when it comes to patriotism. Land (dharti) holds significance as the key ingredient for ‘Motherland’; so much so, that almost all our patriotic films have shown patriots kissing the soil, or holding aloft a fistful of mud before he/ she breathes the last in battle against a national enemy.

The highly film-infected Indian metrosaurus – who is aware of this national affection for land – suffers from some mysterious short circuit in the neural networks of his brain which triggers an immense urge to urinate in the bushes and by the roadsides, or in open sites which are dumped with debris. And this they do regardless of what others, who may be more civil, feel about such behaviour.

This hypocrite under the skin of an average Indian urban citizen is the one that has to be mitigated so that citizens see clearly what damage they are causing over an act which, they feel, is mere relief to one’s bladder.

More importantly, sooner the citizens realise that a nation constitutes of people and natural resources and that these can be affected by a “simple act” of public urination, the better. The quicker it would be then to rid ourselves of this obnoxious habit of urinating in public.