The price of an Indian

THE PRICE OF AN INDIAN

There was an accident few years back, near Gulbarga in Karnataka state. A state run bus ran in to a lake early in the morning while people slept. Around fifty of them died except the driver. Apparently the conductor was driving, while the driver slept. May be he lost control or slept while driving. When bus was fished out and pictures were aired all over. It was so obvious that so many people were trying to escape but could not as the bus was built like a cage.

Indian buses are notorious to have a small windows with iron rails running across the whole length. To make sure people do not put their heads out and climb through the windows, which the Indians are well known for. The buses in the developed world have very large glass windows, so that in case of an emergency they can break the glass to escape. Here in India, windows are such that no body should escape in times of emergency. Indian buses do not have any standards in terms of road worthiness and safety. Our buses do not deserve fitness certificate right from the day they are manufactured. Some body makes a bus chassis and some company covers the chassis with a box to make it look like a bus, throwing few chairs within. No engineering brain is needed.

          Finally nothing happened about that incident, over time everybody forgot. If it was of international standard, most of the passengers could have survived by just breaking the glass and swimming to safety. Imagine dying helplessly struggling in crowded bus when you are drowning, it is worse than dying in a blast. No media raised this issue. Because the media is filled with the same incompetent people who have no concern for the country or humanity, as long as they have story where there is money. They are so concerned about an actress getting pregnant; they will predict the weight of the baby, with color and possible name eight months prior to the birth of the baby.

          There was a bus accident near Coorg, a night bus rammed in to a parked truck packed with logs. Some of the logs came out of the back of the bus on the impact, so many lost lives. Again another bus rammed in to a tractor carrying logs killing some more. The lorry or the tractor should have been displaying reflectors on the back. But they did not and it is always impossible to see these things as they do not reflect light. It is the same with pedestrians, who try to cross the road in the night thinking that the drivers can see them, since he has big lights. What they do not realize is that drivers cannot see them many times as they do not reflect light. In spite these accidents happening regularly no body has made it mandatory for vehicles to have reflectors. 

Everything in this country is a disaster waiting to happen. We have so many bus, train and boat tragedies so often that we do not care.  The number of accidents in India where innocents die are the highest in the world. No media is fighting this war. Media is busy threatening to expose and making money or having useless debates where the experts never get to talk and only the bullies get the airtime. 

          While on visit to a bird sanctuary near Mysore, I saw a boat ride with around 8 to 10 people with no life jackets. There were crocodiles in the river and the boatman goes very close to crocodiles to show them around. If one person panics, it is the end of the journey for the entire crowd.  Even the people are not concerned about this. What about the incident where a family was swept away near Indore which was filmed and posted on the face book. Every day we see so many young guys dying drowning in rivers and falls. Testosterone, alcohol and booming economy is a deadly cocktail for disasters which is killing them on the roads and rivers.

These unnecessary losses of lives are due to failure of the system and irresponsible behaviour of the people. People are really worse than animals in terms of their own safety. Wherever you see Indians you find total disregard for safety of others and themselves. Everybody assumes bad things happen to others. And will not realize until it hits them. Indians on the road with vehicles are menace to the society. Most of them have not gone to a driving school, and every one has his own rule of driving. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the value an Indian has in India. Who will bell the cat?  

Buy Three get six free

Buy three get six free.   

          A common commercial and we all rush in. Are they really throwing away so many free? They are in business right, then how can they give so many free for buying a few? We always bought when there was a need. Now we are buying everything possible since there is an offer or otherwise. All the companies are overproducing and are selling their waste and garbage as offers.

         

World is facing over consumerism. People are buying everything without reason and hardly know the needs. We have a problem of obesity in the world for a simple reason of overeating. In American food industry, the sizes have been increasing over years. Everything is served in big sizes; an ordinary burger has increased in size at least by two to three times in couple of decades. People are overeating as the companies lure them with offers. They just want money and more money at any cost. The idea is best margin and higher profit by spending less.

          Everything in the world is growth, every body wants higher growth. A steel maker wants to increase his capacity, a car maker wants to make more cars and everybody wants to increase their production. We assume we will be prosperous by this growth. Produce more to earn more. The future superpower China is ahead in economic growth since it has enormous exports. China is the only country which produces everything imagined in the world in every possible shape and sizes. Whether it is a toy or any appliance sold on the foot paths everywhere is made in china. Most of these are cheap in terms of quality and price. Since it is cheap you buy, before you know, it is broken and pieces are all over your house and end up as garbage. These are sold for few rupees and even if few million buy they have earned few millions. The raw materials for the same would be in few tonne, which end up as garbage serving no purpose to mankind.  

India is next in line producing these cheap mimics. They are contributing a lot of junk in to the world. Yes we need production for humanity but not cheap stuff, which ends up as garbage in few days. Everybody wants to be in business as it makes faster money. So many hungry corporates are leading millions of others in to business. We have millions on the footpath across the country selling piece of trash. They are non productive and their actions are only a burden on the environment. 

          World is building and enormous amount of cement, sand and steel are used. How long will these raw materials last? There is a limit to the resources. World’s greed is using up every possible resources like metals, stones, sand and everything. Finally we may be left with earth with moon surface. Most of the producers are making cheap products which do not last and end up as garbage and cannot be recycled.

          How many of us know how to use water. Billions of litres of water is wasted in the country by the poorly built low quality leaking taps. These low quality taps are flooded in the market and have used up lot of resources and are a strain on the country and planet. Lot of water is wasted even in farming without proper practice. And farming itself is causing lot of problems to the earth. Rivers are drying up. The rivers which used to flow in full are filled with dirty sewage water and hardly move.

Massive scale of agriculture is altering the normal ecosystem. We need enormous amount of food, for huge population we are bringing on to earth. What about the food we waste, how many of us are conscious about the wastage of food. Forget overcooking or over ordering in a hotel. If you have seen a hostel mess you will know, how people waste food. They are greedy; they take more than they can chew and end up throwing food. Just imagine all around the world food being thrown in a day from different situations. 

Marriages in India are the worst offenders. They use up lot of resources for nothing. The amount of food wasted in marriages is  enormous; they just take everything on the menu when they cannot eat any. In turn they throw and waste.  I feel a day’s wastage of food around the world can feed the people with no food around the world. If only we learn to live with moderation and have little common sense world can change. 

Indiscriminate usage of resources is hurting the ecosystem. We are not bothered about it. Earth is going to be there, even after we have left, but with a desert. PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search, for illustrations only.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CIVILISATION

In a movie I saw long back, there is a British engineer who is overseeing the road work being done, asks the Indian contractor as to where that road leads to. He tells him a name of a village for which the engineer says “No, it leads to civilization”.

So where does a road lead to? Yes it leads to another village, town or a city. A road leads to another state and country. And in turn it leads two different people or communities, in turn leads to many people and communities and cultures. There is exchange of goods, gestures, cultures and everything what two people can do.

A road builds an easy access to remote places to educate them. A road leads to humanity, love and breaks barriers. So we now are convinced little what the British engineer told. 

So In India looking at our roads, we can come to a conclusion that we are not civilized enough. Basically the topic is limited to India only. There are many countries in the world with beautiful roads with no civilization.

This is a country which builds rockets and puts satellites in to orbit and is one of the six countries in the world to do it. Builds intercontinental missiles and competes with the developed world in healthcare. Has the third largest railway line in the world. It makes highest number of movies in the world. But one thing this country cannot have is a decent road. Where are the roads in this country?

We have never really built roads with a plan. Few may be. The majority were widened walking paths. Over time they have been widened to the extent needed to use for bullock carts and later vehicles. So we have all kinds of winding so called roads, which are dangerous and unmotorable. 

The world builds road, but we lay them. All we have to do is put some tar and run a road roller and we have a beautiful road on the first day and two days later it’s gone. Yes it is corruption and so on. Ultimately it is the problem of the people; it is they who need roads. It is the people who destroy the roads. Everybody wants a beautiful road in front their house. But they don’t want any vehicles running across. Moment the vehicles start, they want a road hump in front of their house. Half the road is occupied by the residents on either side, by making a garden or fencing the area. There is always something crossing across the road in front of all the houses. Every house has something to take under the road and they dig across. Never filling it completely and all we have is a tunnel in the road for every house. 
 

People do not want roads with vehicles running across in front of their houses, so they create so many problems to the traffic. Then we make a bye pass road or a ring road and take the road away from them to the outskirts. Suddenly the real estate picks up next to the bye pass or ring road and everybody wants to have a place there. And again the same problem arises. We will have shops, road barriers and humps. A new town or village comes next to the bye pass or ring road and again another bottle neck, traffic comes to a halt.

         We have the highest number of road accidents in the world. The main reason is the state of our roads. Roads are not visible, there are no signs. roads are filled with millions of pot holes and are uneven, no markings, no side rails in curves and basically no plan for building a road. It is just a paved path. Suddenly you get curves in the roads which are invisible. Invariably sudden invisible curves will always be next to a lake and we find unsuspecting drivers, driving in to the lakes. After many people driving in to lakes killing millions by drowning, there is an outcry and the treatment will be to put road humps which are invisible and cause more accidents. 

Then we have poor quality transport. Do you know the Indian buses are not really built as a bus? For so many decades the buses are built in this country on a lorry chassis. These chassis are bought and given to body builders across the country, who are master copiers, who copy the body building and build a body over the lorry chassis and make it in to a bus. I do not believe they have any concern about the safety of the commuters or they have any technology at all. These buses and Lorries we produce cannot carry their own weight on a hill. They really are a nuisance. They obstruct traffic and cannot carry the weight they have been loaded. This is the kind of quality our so called market leaders are pouring us. The first bus to arrive in reality was when Volvo came in to Indian market. Of course, now the new Indian multinationals are trying to compete with the real multinationals. Only thing they have achieved is some cheap cosmetic alteration. 

Our road behavior is one of the most unbelievable adventures. Nobody has any common sense when they use the road. No rules and no concern for the traffic or people. Everybody wants to be ahead and honk to show their presence. Half the traffic problems could have been solved if only the traffic police did their job. Traffic police are busy only catching the guys without helmet and finding fault with unnecessary things for few rupees. If only they were enforcing the rules many would have followed rules. I always wonder,why the traffic cops are not bothered about the people who break rules and are more concerned with riders without helmet. What is your bloody problem, if that guy is riding without a helmet, that will only break his own head. The helmet by itself is not going to save others anyway.

 People do not know how to use the road; everybody is a hero on the road, whether it is the pedestrian, cycle, scooter, car and other vehicles users. 

Finally, it comes to international standard roads which will lead to some civilization for our country. It is foolishness to keep on harping we have the best culture, only problem is corruption, if we can get rid of it, we are on our way to heaven and all. Honestly, it is really foolish to wish that we can get rid of corruption in this country. Corruption cannot wished away from this country by law and punishment. We need to build a generation with values, that takes time, and who will implement that first. So we are back to square one. May be we can wish like I wish, if only all those people who believe in their God and visit their places of worship and pray are honest is good enough for our country. Then we can be a country to reckon, a superpower and leader of the world. Wishful thinking is good sometimes. At the same time world peace also. Here it has to be the opposite, remove the god we have world peace.   

 Back to roads, if only all the roads were of that international standard ( plain simple planned roads) and connecting all the villages and cities. There would less migration to cities. There will be even distribution and people would be happy to be away from cities and live in small towns and villages as the approach to the city is easier. And doctor would easily go to villages to practice, when they can drive back to their city easily. More development will percolate in to villages as again the approach is easy. There will be exchange of ideas and fewer burdens on the society to cater to the cities. There will be less demand for personal vehicles and public transport will pick up and many people will use them. Good roads can have less accidents, less road rage, cleaner country, less emission, less costs in turns of repair and spare parts. Good roads save man power and costs to the society in terms of resources.
If greatest invention in the world is wheel, the next best should be the road. Imagine the world without wheel, then you know the value of the wheel with no road.  


PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search and used for illustration purposes only.

Fair & Politics

Fair & Politics

Fair & lovely has been popular for so many years, now they have Fair & handsome for men. I do not know how far it works to whiten the faces of countless people who have been using since years. We have many products claiming to whiten faces and they challenge you also. If only it had worked we would have had millions of our dark and wheatish Indians competing with the white people by now and claim we are white.

Why are we so mad about being fair? Every kid which is born is assessed by the mother and the whole clan about the colour. If the baby is little less fair or wheatish, it is branded as dark. If it is dark, again whole clan will be talking about it, many of them will be very happy with their hidden jealousy of parents. Others will be happy saying the parents deserved, again jealous of parents.

We discriminate darker people, specially women. The moment you meet a person, colour is taken as the criteria to judge before having spoken and judged. Is there some amount of caste involved in this? I believe so. If you take your friend who is dark, the way he will be treated by your family members can speak a lot about it. It happens with the person who is dark himself. Is white a better colour for people? Dark people are considered inferior. The native Africans considered darker people more beautiful, jet black was the best. I came across this in Roots novel by Alex Haley.
 

Which is the better colour for people, black or white? Why is white popular? If you were born as black and if no white people had invaded your continent and would you have wished to be white? If only the colour was interchanged among the black and white rest remaining same, what would have been the trend? The Europeans being black and invaded the rest of the world and things were like now. Only the colour being changed and rest being constant, I bet the trend would’ve been that black would be the in thing. Rest of the fairer people would be running for tan. Tanning companies would’ve made a kill. Fair would have been discriminated. Jet black would’ve been handsome and beautiful.

Let me tell why white people are famous. White people did it first. They conquered the world, got more civilized first; became the developed world first, got inventions first and they went ahead in life and could rule the world. They may have taken from others but they did it first. Many may argue that India was more civilized before the west centuries before. What can we do, we were beaten back to Stone Age by millions of invaders, and still we have not recovered. The way things are going we may or may not be driven again.

FTV a fashion TV we all have seen. Lot of African descent girls are seen walking the ramp and you all know Naomi Campbell. Why have we not seen dark skinned girls on Indian fashion ramp or in movies? I remember when this was asked to an Indian photographer, he replied that they were not photogenic. This is what colour bias is. Colour bias or discrimination is more with girls than boys. Have you seen south movies? Most of the heroes are dark and heroines are very fair. There is discrimination from the other side also. If you happen to be in a territory of darker people they discriminate the fair. In spite of them being dark, they want the women to be fair. Southern movies will tell all.

In Hollywood Indians love Halle Berry or Thandie Newton, they would love to marry them. If you ask them to marry the same complexion Indian girl they would not do it. But nobody in India of that complexion can come in to bollywood or southwoods. Though south is where darker people live. Halle and Thandie are beautiful for their achievement and the class which is desirable to men. If they were just college girls in India then they would have had to cough up a lot to get married. So the beauty is not in colour.

Now you got some idea about this. You would’ve seen a lot of African descent students in India. How do you find them? Do you discriminate them as much as you do with the Indians? May be, may be not. Most of the African descent students we see come from underdeveloped countries like Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia and others. When you look at them you really wonder whether their country is really underdeveloped. The attitude, the dressing style and how they carry themselves make you wonder. They look beautiful irrespective of facial features and colour. Many still argue they are from higher society in their country. I agree, then compare with ours. Many Indian men dream of these women. But if it is an Indian of the same colour they are least interested. Those women are darker than Indian women and they are from underdeveloped country but they are very desirable for Indian men. Same darker Indian girls are not.

Moment the girl is born, most of the parents are depressed. On top of it, if she is dark, it is like a curse by the God. There is a flash among the parents, Oh, my god how to get her married ?. Same day they start saving money for the final ritual of getting rid of her by marriage as she is a burden. That is why we see even the educated parents marring their girls before eighteen years.

Right from childhood, girl is cursed for being dark. She is not let to be herself. Parents dictate how to lead a life which is their parents view. Dressing, attitude, views cannot be individualistic. She is constantly reminded of her darkness and the amount of money they have to spend for her wedding and dowry. She can’t go with friends; she is part of the suspicion. So she overeats and becomes fat. She dresses shabbily and doesn’t look pretty. All these factors give her a bad attitude. And she tried to use jewels to compensate.

Her self confidence and self esteem is broken. She is made to believe that only thing for her is her marriage and going away.

What about the ones who are treated well and who study and do well. This issue is almost same with little difference, so lets generally go about it.

Finally, we need a solution. I think it is very simple. First accept the colour complexion. Work on other things. Beauty is not in colour, but it is in the attitude of a person. Let me give an example. There is a very fair and gorgeous girl in college. If a guy goes out with her for dinner and finds her that, she does not smell good, has bad mouth odour and talks non sense continuously. Then you have a darker girl, who is dressed well, with a nice hair, smells good, smiles well, carries with a style, you enjoy her company. Who do you think will be sought after? I think the latter.

What we need to learn is accept the dark colour. It is just the skin colour. It is not her attitude, behavior or life which is black. Give her same love as others, treasure her, give freedom and confidence. Self respect and self pride is important. Dressing well, hygiene, manners make a person beautiful. The higher way of life needs an attitude of accepting global standards of living, leaving the repeated lecture of culture which is medieval some times. Superstitions, stupidity, hearsay are the ones keeping people in views of bygone era.

Finally I would say you can be what you want irrespective of what colour you are. All it needs is what view or perspective you have on life and how you want to go about it. Your behavior, dressing, how you carry yourself, your care for personal hygiene, how physically fit and your language and your style can build you and give enough respect irrespective of your colour.

PS: The pictures are copied from the Google search and used for illustrations only.
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Corporate Casteism

“Be Indian Buy Indian” popular slogan of yesteryear was contradictory. We always fancied imported objects. Even now in spite of products from around the world, we are suspicious of multinational's products made in India. We feel some of them sell lower quality product than their original, in some cases it is. Indian companies are yet to catch up in terms of their quality.

When a Volvo chief was interviewed by an auto magazine years back, about the service centers for their new trucks, as Indian trucks could be serviced every five kilometers. He told them, that Volvo did not need service centers every five kilometers. A case of how obsessed we are of service centers more than the product. We expect them to break down before we have bought them. We have poor management and manpower producing cheap products.

In Indian setup employers assume the employees are of lower standard, not productive enough and useless. Employees think the employer is amassing wealth by their efforts without any benefit,  so do not have any loyalty and are inefficient. Employers have not done enough to alleviate their lifestyle for which they are not proud to be part of the establishment and have least interest in work.

In daily life we come across many people arrogant and nasty. They neither care for you and nor respect you. We find millions like this. We dread to interact with our own Indian, a shopkeeper, an auto driver, a clerk in any place; a nurse in an hospital and list goes on. Everybody is irritated and arrogant. 

The basic problem for inefficiency and bad attitude boils down to how they feel about themselves. Most of them are not happy with themselves; either because of the job or the way they lead their lives. A person with a positive attitude in his life will have better attitude in his work and quality is better. The standard of living, his views and priorities in life also have an impact on the quality of work.

The management has never invested in improving the standard of living of employees or their attitude. They expect higher quality with training related to the work and without improving the personal status of the individual. Monotonous work, mood swings, family conditions, individual confidence which affect the work are not at all taken in to consideration. Bonus is nothing but an extra pocket money used to enjoy while it lasts. Other than that is there no improvement in the personality or the standard of living.

Taxi drivers abroad as I have seen in TV 'just for laughs gags', are dressed so well and behave so well in spite of the fun being on them. They are so helpful and take the humour without getting angry. How about our humour, people just attack if the fun is on them. Our taxi drivers live a different life. There are so many things why our people are like this.  One thing I will point out is that they are dressed in khaki. Most hideous dress descended from colonial times. We have dress code for everything, invariably it is khaki, in the name of discipline. Lower their status, most lowly their dress including the colour. Everything considered lowly are provided khaki. Drivers, cleaners, housekeeping and many more. Some times they may be brown, dirty gray and ugly. Because it is considered as a dirty job.

Indian corporate management have their brains from their grandparents which is from 1800s. So they insist on the customs and dress code like their good old great culture, which they do not even know. 

The employees are not given anything worthwhile in their work place, no proper seating, toilets, and eating-place. Whatever is provided is of a lower quality. Whenever they do give something, the same people (employees) may bring them to a lower standard by their attitude and actions. Simply put they are treated like lower class and are expected to have an attitude and behavior of higher class.

Most come from lower strata of the society and do not have an access to newer lifestyles  Ignorant about life and confused view of life with many kids in the family, they are least interested in improving their lifestyle  as it needs an effort and cost. You cannot expect them to have balanced moods and dedication to  work. They want to finish work without any trouble for the paycheck at month end. They care less whether their quality is good or not. Their worries, view and attitude are not at all taken into consideration. That is restricted for the educated. So that is what you get from them in the form of shoddy work and careless attitude.

Casteism is not about the caste per se. It is the hierarchy.

Advantaged taking advantage of the disadvantaged to make sure they do not take advantage to get to the advantaged.

This newer trend can be called Corporate Casteism.

Finally the solution for better quality of work of the employees lies in not just training them the work they do but aggressively bringing their standard up in the society. They should be treated better and should be made to feel better in life to get a decent job done. Monetary benefits may only give an opportunity to get into irrational way of life. If only the way to life and better living is taught to them, they will have better view of life and their attitude will change for good. 

If you want quality work from a person, first and foremost he should have his own quality. When a person is least interested in himself, his environment and family, what can he give in terms of quality work? People in our country have different attitudes, different culture, millions of superstitions and some weird unbelievable beliefs. They have to change these perceptions before they get in this new world order. How do you achieve this? We need to educate them. I would always prefer to start from toilet training, which I have talked in my previous write up. Next is to concentrate on personal grooming. There should be clean toilets with shower. Where the employees wash in the campus itself. You should provide hairstylists, the dress code should be liberal and quality of the dress should be good. Lower class should be encouraged  You can think of providing Gym, get together with family and film shows with meaningful values. The list goes on.

Next you have to address the family. The family has to be involved for upbringing the standard. These are the few things I can mention. If only we understood these issues, then only we can appreciate the value of them. They can change their attitude; there will not be hierarchy and better work atmosphere and better quality of life and better work.

Many of the Indian corporates have not contributed anything to the society  They think paying the employees and tax fulfills their obligation to the society  But I feel these are the people who should be working to change the society  and it does not cost much. It may be less than 20% of their annual advertising costs.

PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search for illustration purposes only.

Road to prosperity lies in toilet training part 2.

Read my first part this blog here.

http://pradski.blogspot.in/2009/07/road-to-prosperity-lies-in-toilet.html

Road to prosperity lies in toilet training. Part 2, is a follow up write up to my previous blog. 

How can we help Indians attain a better standard of living. Higher qualification or economic prosperity, which can bring them higher standard. Do we have a criteria which can help in improving their  standard living. Do we take this index as a measure for the development of people? So far that is how it has been thought. Wealthy does not mean they have attained a better standard of living. You can see lot of wealthy with thick gold chains, lacking basic common sense or civic sense. Higher level of living is not luxurious and rich. Simple it is basic common and civic sense. Respect for others and everything around them. Higher level of living is an enhanced individual with good behaviour in all the acts. 

I feel, Toilet trained India can go global. And I view it will bring down corruption by some percentage finally. ( You literally have to join lot of lines to get to this.)

Let me give you an example. In Hollywood movie Pretty Woman,   Julia Roberts is a call girl. After staying with Richard Gere, a businessman for couple of weeks, she has evolves into a lady equivalent to a lady of higher strata of society. When she walks with Richard in her red dress with right body language and style, it shows her confidence and pride. Just that morning she was a call 








girl and by evening she has a different attitude and a glow in her face. She could not afford a drink in the same hotel she was in yet she felt higher. By the time she goes back to her room, she has changed in her dressing, body language and has a new life. Alone with a new attitude towards life and a conflict with her present and previous life she decides to study further.  

She had acquired the right attitude and was confident. She had transformed into a wonderful woman with a class and never felt she was a call girl.  May be a Cinderella story yet you learn a lot.

    A person can change his or her life by just acquiring simple acts of better way of living. All they have to do is to learn those and implement their life. At present in the world, Indians are  discriminated for their lowest standards, lower than tiny poor nations. And it is time Indians acquired some standards in this stage of human life, that is toilet training. 

When you build people from toilet training as the basic feature for better standard of living, you will see their living standard as well as the standard of the community improving. Toilet trained will give importance to a toilet and will accept that the natural process can be good and clean than the present Indian thinking of being dirty. Toilets are neglected in many families and are assumed to be dirty areas. A spotless house can have a stinking toilet. Many communities in our country do not build toilets inside their house. They consider them as dirty, as their God does not approve. I still wonder who this God is, who does not visit them for the natural process which he has created. 

Toilet trained automatically, will enhance their life in habits, cleanliness and acquire a better standard of life. They feel proud of themselves and move a for better attainment. They will dress better,  get the best of their behaviour. They will not feel the need to acquire lot of wealth for a better way of life which they have acquired free.

The personal behavior will improve and interests will change. They will be willing to enhance their lifestyle.When they know the better way living does not need obnoxious amount of money. They greed is reduced and there will be reduction in the number of people who want to go an extra mile of conning people. They do not have to loot public to acquire wealth, thinking wealth brings happiness. There are so many millions of families who live with small income still lead a better lifestyle by their simple and beautiful thinking.



Small percentage of people will not change, like a small percentage of people around you who should have been in jail walking around. You can't put them in jail. Small percentage will not listen and not function as expected. We are looking at the rest.

We like to dress well for others many times yet many times we dress for ourselves. Our pride, feeling and personal satisfaction. We wear branded  and spend a lot of time enhancing our image in front of others. Well dressed day will have a better body language and energy. It is the way we feel about yourself. We buy expensive underwear when nobody can see and appreciate. Most of the time there no chance of impressing with this. This explains that, more you feel better about yourself the better it is for you in being confident, better energy and a better life.



Just imagine all the toilet trained Indians in the world stage. We are known for our academic record and business(many famous business communities). If only they acquired the standards of the international community. For a moment dream how they will be the next day.

That toilet trained is half way ahead in personal development. This again is not a successful mantra in life. It is my view, personality development is an important aspect to build a better society. Our society is built upon differences so many that we still can’t count. We have to respect others first to develop. That can happen with building a community from grass root level. This is where we should start and along with rest of the things like education,moral values, national pride, honesty and this will go a long way in achieving our long-term goal of being a developed nation.

Road to prosperity lies in toilet training.

Open air defecation is the worst problem India suffers from. 

Most of the people in India cannot afford to have toilets at home. As most of them are uneducated and live in villages or slums. Government is encouraging to build toilets at home and is refunding money for construction of toilets at their residence.

What are people doing with this policy?

They are taking photos of somebody else’s toilet and getting the refund.

Why are our people like this? Why do they not want to improve their status? They do not think, what they are doing is bad after all. They are happy, open-air toilet is better for them. There are many reasons why they do this.

First is that they have been doing this for years, there is nothing wrong in continuing, since nobody is forcing them, not to do it.

Second many of the toilets what they have seen, if ever they have seen, are ill ventilated and smell is different for the one who is used to open air defecation, where there is fresh air.

Other thing is, everybody is doing it and there is no feeling of guilt or shame. It is common and natural.

So we have millions of them defecating openly all over the country and soiling every water source. This is a serious issue we have to address immediately.

In my view any development we do, we have to start from the grass root level. We have to invest in our villages. We have to teach them, we have to be strict and implement the projects and at the same time we have to take action against ones who do not follow.

This has to be taken as a national priority and should be tackled at the national level with a blanket rule.

All the institutions of the nation have to be roped in, private and public, which include schools, colleges, industries and volunteers. There should be a time frame of six months to one year, just to teach and train. Teaching them to use toilet saying that they have to use toilets because it does not look good to others is not the way to do it.

The toilet by itself has to be explained, in terms of hygiene, how it functions, how to flush properly, how not to waste water, how to keep it clean. You have to get to basics including how to seat themselves on western toilet either for urinating or defecating. There is little bit of science involved here.

Many women do not use western toilets for urinating for some silly reason. The reason is, they do not know how to seat themselves. For example: they have to seat little front for urinating and little back for defecating. And men should lift toilet seats for urinating in western style or still better to seat themselves to urinate.

Then only can you expect them to get used that.

Government is already financing building of toilets. But this has to be taken very seriously and private sector has to be roped in. I would say this has to be done aggressively like pulse polio program.

Just because many have toilets at home does not mean they know how to use them. There are many who are highly educated, having no idea how to use them. This you can see in any five star hotel when conferences are conducted.

Another thing we have to do is build toilets across the nation. This can be given to private sector in public lands (mostly in towns and cities). They can charge for services.

We should have an authority something like ISO for toilets. All these toilets should adhere to the guidelines of that authority how to keep it clean and charge.

Until we learn this toilet business, we cannot go very far in this world. I personally feel, this is the first thing any human should know before he can call himself developed.

Toilet trained is half way ahead. A person's attitude can change when he is toilet trained. Just imagine the hygiene standard of the country after this with no open air defecation. 

PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search for illustration purposes only.