Open problem in a closed society

Ours is a very open society, progressive all the time, often ahead of its time too.

Open defecation was very much part of an agrarian society where houses were essentially meant to store grains and tools, dwelling in it came much later (red indian tents - does it ring a bell?). People those days did not know anything about chemical compounds, fertilizers etc. All they knew was shit was good for their soil (for the plants). So they kept dumping not just theirs but also of those livestock they kept for farm work as well as for food (hens, cows, bulls, ducks, goats...). For those of you who feel offended at the very word s$$$, let us use the term 'night soil' :-)

At a time when western science was was not invented yet, agrarian people used night soil to grow all kind of grains, veggies and fruits. They had no qualms about it because they treated everything as a confluence of the same five base elements. 

A typical morning in a farming village: 

(this was the case even into late 1980s, I grew up witnessing as well as practicing this system :-))

Farming folks usually go for a predawn walk that stimulates bowel movement, add night soil to real soil in the cover of darkness (only in their own fields! They never go to the fields of somebody else for this ritual as they know the value of their night soil!), use the nearby water bodies to cleanse themselves and walk back home to get ready for the day. Areas used by men and women are either geographically separated or time separated. The same water bodies used by them are used by entire village for bathing as well, along with live stock which also plunge for regular dips alongside!

(Drinking water comes from wells - a beautiful concept in practice to collect rainwater and use on a need basis; you draw only what you need, no water pumps deployed yet so no wastage).

Folks systematically collect livestock manure too (we accept this term manure easily but cringe at the use of the word shit, ahem!) and dump them in their fields for enriching their crops further. The term 'waste' is simply unheard of! 

Myriad organisms in the soil that love night soil break it down into rich manure that is essential for plant growth. 

Plants simply love the nutrients and minerals thus available. What we witness is a classic endless cycle; we eat crops, produce night soil which is eaten by plants that produce these crops! For Omnivores, we simply add an additional layer of 'meat' giving creatures into this narrative!

Our folks are not scientists but they simply know by observation that plants thrive on night soil.

Some of these folks are freaks! They carry some fruit seeds / tuber seeds with them when they set out to dump night soil, make a pit in their field, dump night soil into it, shovel some layers of soil over this and plant these seeds on it before ambling back in darkness! So much work combined in a simple walk!

Look Mom, We are growing!

Something went terribly wrong beginning Seventies, for the next three decades; green revolution in 70s, urbanization in 80s and economic liberalization in the nineties. Agrarian folks became poorer and poorer. They started migrating from agrarian baskets to greener pastures lured by lofty promises, mainly that of quality education and jobs in that order. 

Towns and cities became crowded. More people sold their fields back home and started living full time in cities in lesser and lesser space with no room for toilets! Most of them were OK with it since they still carried their village rituals with them; Roads, river banks and banks of water bodies started receiving their night soil.

Cut to the Millennium

So much has happened in the name of development, urbanization and globalization...

We have become such a caring society that one does not see 'that many' old age homes; we simply converted our villages into old age homes by leaving behind all elders and not so able bodied folks there! 

We keep sending money. Business keeps robbing it from them by enticing them with things they never need and never use. 

When we visit them, we need technology to stay connected with our paymasters. Business also needs it to push more junk to them. Inevitably many of our villages boast of Internet and Cable television connections in every dwelling unit. Mobile phones are ubiquitous. E commerce too has 'touch'ed them. 

Many of us who were pulled into big cities in the eighties are now pushed out by these same cities (cost of living is skyrocketing, health is screwed up by life style choices, children don't understand us anymore) and we yearn to go back to that golden place called home, back in our villages.

Pendulum has swung. But old habits die hard. We still yearn to deposit night soil in the open though the very tenets anchoring farming has been screwed up beyond quick recovery by mindless dumping of chemicals that made our soil toxic.

All through these years, folks who are born and brought up in the big towns and cities and conditioned to think that Shit is bad, cringe on the very mention of open defecation without ever realising the oscillations of the night soil people and keep devising ways to 'educate' these folks to make them give up their age old practice. We keep spending enormous sums building up toilets in villages; only our village folks refuse to go in!

Shit Dynamics

Now let us focus on the Shit dynamics in a big city, any big city in our country, as of today.

Most of the residential areas are still not served by any drainage systems. Shit is stored locally within the house (septic tank) though out of sight as it gives us some degree of comfort. Almost every single soul born outside a village is taught 'Shit is bad'.

When we city folks see a clogged toilet, we call up a septic tank cleaning firm. It dispatches a vehicle with a team that uses a pump to suck out muck from the septic tank into a tanker and drive it away after lightening our purse by some big bucks. We sigh with relief and start replenishing the septic tank in a blink.

How many of us know where these tankers go and what happens to the goods they carry?

A recent nationwide census found out that we simply haven't learnt yet as to how to handle this waste. Attempts have been made to treat them using STPs (Sewage treatment plants), convert the sludge into fertilizers etc but nothing seems to work. We still dump tons and tons of shit into open fields, water bodies, lakes, rivers (even Yamuna and Ganga not spared) and oceans by method or madness. The same myriad organisms that converted shit into rich food for plants still try their best to do their work but they have a mighty hindrance in the form of toxic waste that mixes it up and makes digesting it very very difficult.

Conclusion

Live stock manure is cool. Ours is not, either because we are hypocrites or...we knew too well what we ate!

We think that we have become sophisticated in handling shit by quarantining it, evacuating it safely, transporting it securely and letting it loose on us back in one big woosh!!!!!!

Most of our night soil gets deposited into uncultivated soil / water bodies that are heavily used - both unethical. Funny that we are coaxing village folks to 'use the toilets or else we shall cut water connection to your houses' while contaminating the very soil we live and the water bodies we depend. Sad that somebody recently got killed while trying to photograph women defecating in the open to prove their guilt (this guy was beaten to death by villagers)...

The same western world that taught us to treat shit as shit is now embracing the idea of using night soil in their organic farming practice, calling it a great leap of faith. Look closer, the term 'night' in night soil actually refers to the predawn practice of our agrarian folks!

17.5 Million tons of Shit produced by (just a known subset) of 1.2 billion people - that is little bit of matter and lot of water - a GIANT problem!

Disclaimer!

I am not propagating open defecation by any stretch of imagination. I am just appalled by our collective ignorance and short sighted 'rediscover the wheel' kind of attempts to find that good solution to this Open problem. That is all!