 Hello, welcome once again to this show that we call Cities Sins. And as you are aware, we've been raising issues of cities. And today, we are going to discuss one of the most pertinent issues that the cities face, and that's about our toilets. Also because of the fact that we today is World Toilet's Day, November 19th, and the UN has given theme for this day as Accelerating Change. So what does the Accelerating Change mean? Does it mean only to produce more toilets? When we discuss about toilets, is it just an engineering malaise, or is it more than that? We've seen such about mission which focused on open defecation, but that has not stopped. So is it just an engineering malaise, or is it a cultural question? What is a toilet? A toilet, is it a manifestation just of some infrastructure problem, or is it also a convergence of public health? Is it also a convergence of many other agencies, of gender, of caste that we witness in the cities? For all these issues, today we are going to discuss with one of the very prominent faces in our country who's worked from the whole question of the praxi of the design. And you do not produce knowledge as she rightly says. It's the knowledge that gets generated in a very democratic sense. What is this democratic sense? Can toilet be your image? I think that's what we are going to discuss. And what are the major disruptions? But before we understand the disruptions, what is the major hindrance for a major disruption to happen? And through this disruption, what are the new processes that we have to advent for a better toilet, a better living? So today we have with us Ganga who has done phenomenally good work in the South in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and who is quite instrumental into what she called the praxi, if I'm right, Ganga, the praxi of design and who's an urban designer, why? And we've seen how she and her team, they were instrumental into not just understanding the nuances of toilet, but how it's a people's issue, how it's completely a new paradigm. And that's what we've witnessed in Kerala where she's been able to work, bring in communities, bring in people. And Ganga, if you could just tell me the movement that you lead, it's called, it's toilet, huh? Yeah, so it's- Is it the organization? As Kapoor's, yeah, Kapoor's, so we have a technology also innovated out of it, it's called Kapoor's app. No, but the organization that you lead, I mean. Oh, okay. So it's called Recycle Ben. Recycle Ben, yeah, Recycle Ben is that. So, yeah, we straight away come to you, right? I mean, I don't have to tell you the details of the challenges that we have. We had Swach Bharat Mission 1.0, now we have 2.0. We know Swach Bharat Mission meant, I mean, primarily to get rid of open defecation, but we still find our cities are still grappling with those issues. But at the same time, even the toilets that have been constructed, there is no add-on to that. I mean, how do we treat the waste that gets, you know, I mean, the entire process of treating the waste, I think, in a generic sense, and what specifically you've been able to do. So over to you, Ganga, we'd love to hear from you. Thank you for the introduction. So, the best way I want to introduce or probably remind or reinvent the word toilet would be as testimony of truth and lies. So, to put it across. I didn't hear that. You said don't? Truth and lie. Ah, okay, okay. Testing of truth and lies. Okay. Truth and lies. Yes. So, if you're looking at from a very public perspective or from a citizen perspective, we have the habit of reviewing and participating in the production of everything we consume. So we do it from art forms, movies, all the kind of products, everything that we get in the market. And strangely and surprisingly, we don't move it with our public infrastructure or in anything that is. So it somehow... Just try to explain that. And what does that mean for a very commoner, for a very simple man, woman who's watching this show? Yeah. So we're used to reviewing movies. We're used to reviewing everything which we consume. So we give our comments, we give our feedbacks. We raise our alarms, we bring to notice, we have campaigns. So many things are going for keeping many of our consumables in our right place. But somehow our public domain is never going through that process. So, and that is where our public consciousness is really built in our public spaces. So, which means there is somewhere a disconnect between what I consume and what is being produced. So for example, you don't get to see a bus stand reviewed, a bus stand which is badly made, reviewed by the public. Okay, you don't get to see... I mean, this is music to my ears, you know, because for a long time, I'm hearing someone who speaks about, you know, public reviewing public spaces are great. I mean, please go ahead here. Yeah, because we don't relate to it as something we consume. Okay, which means somewhere at the production level, some information is actually not democratized to the public. Okay, so there is a gap whether it's fabricated or not, there is a gap. So, in a way, at an ideological level, our public domains are not really democratized at its knowledge scale. So, as a consumer, I really don't know I'm getting curious now, curious and more curious as you're speaking. So, what does that mean? I mean, the whole question of the whole bundle of ideological moorings that you've just said about, you know, not getting democratized. Yeah, yeah, please, please. That's where I want to bring in toilets. So, you really don't know whether if I fly all week since or not. Okay, we believe it makes sense or not. We really don't know the crows we pumped into the idea of development as we see it really makes sense or is it going to make any lives better? So, that information you don't have. Go to a toilet, toilet will you the truth because that is a testimony of truth of what we stand for because toilet is a place where the public, actually the humanity express themselves in the most honest form. So, sitting here across the scene, we share a body language because there is a notion of place which is being watched. So, our body languages are coded. But the moment you go into a loom, it's all different. It's an intimate expression of your ultimate honesty. So, I would call it a testimony of truth at the same time it's a testimony of lies as far as the production or the design and manufacturing of that public utility by, say, our governments. So, it is kind of a very interesting intersection of us and the top. So, the grassroot and the top are connected with truth and hypocrisy there. Hope I can convey it well. Well, that's fabulous. It's very interesting and I can see because I've served the city for five years being the directly elected deputy mayor. So, I can understand what you're saying and that's why I said it's music to my ears. But then, you know, how do you break this disruption? I mean, you know, because this is such a gigantic scale that we're talking about billions of rupees we are pumping into constructing toilets. At the end of the day, we have a review of SBM-1 where the workers have said, you know, maybe 20 or 30% of the toilets are not put to use, you know, because the design, the structure is such. So, and since you've had the first unexpedance of engaging with this process, so how do you bring a disruption to that and, you know, make toilets? I mean, as you said, I mean, you know, kind of space or place where this whole idea of people reviewing it really becomes quite instrumental into steering forward. To make any system to exist in its most powerful form, the best way is to democratize it in the most truthful way. So, what is the hindrance? Before we talk about the disruption, I think we should be talking about the hindrance. Yeah, the hindrance, yeah, the hindrance, yeah. In India, Swachh Bharat Abhyan is essentially a product of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which is a production unit with engineering as its basis. Where the fund flow, I mean, it is quoted majorly because there is no real data of like, what is the split? But it is essentially going into production of new infrastructure. So, instead of me pointing out, I can give probably a better example of the world, where you have, say, an African country, Rwanda, where health sector also played a very important role in their national sanitation policy. So, what happened is, apart from just making it building production, you are looking at health department also incentivizing toilets based on the performance. So, which is probably one probable component of an innovation that you can bring in to break so we may talk about disruption. So, as a citizen, I'm really not aware who is this Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and what is that instrumental channel of bringing out a toilet? So, when it is probably the CPWD designing the policy, engineering, becoming the key factor and that is transport to local self-government bodies. Essentially, we are looking at building production but actually it's a culture. Sanitation is a culture. And from a policy level, we have never responded to it. I think that's something very interesting. I mean, so, you pointed to the hindrance and could you be more elaborate on the hindrance? But I think this is a catch. It's not engineering, it's not producing engineering stuff. It's about culture and how do you build or building this culture? But could you just elaborate more? I mean, the Uganda experience is really very interesting where it's not just the urban department or whatever, but it's the health also that there's complete engagement. So, could you just elaborate more in the Indian context so that we could... So, the convergence that we look at Wanda has housing authority playing a role. Okay, health sector playing a role. Education sector also playing a key role. So, when you're looking at production of an infrastructure from a convergence, which is like energizing the infrastructure. Now, so this, I just mentioned the hindrance from the top. Now, we can look at the hindrance from the bottom which everybody will relate to. Okay, so when we're trying for toilets, which are like where women's literally can't, women can't actually access public toilets. But what I am stating it this way, women hardly consume water during their navigation term. And if we are bringing out a survey of vulnerability to probably lunar impact infection kind of diseases, which is like really allowing and the rate is at least empirically very high. And if that is connected to infrastructure, think of the connection between health and infrastructure at the top level of country has been awaited. So, from now... Great, yeah, I'm glad you brought that. Yeah, yeah, please, please go ahead, please go ahead. So, you're looking at every kind of disconnected, disconnection, simulating at the top and bottom equally. So, how have we responded to it? As a policy, we have responded to it with quantities. So probably that is where when you're looking at such barred awareness indicators and achievements in numbers. So, but if you're looking at say the women population totally abandoning the existing toilets because they are not accessible is numbers the real indicator of accessibility. Accessibility has to be defined as who gets what, when and where. Then that... Please, please, please, I would love you to elaborate who gets what, when and where. Just elaborate that more for a common person. Actually, we've been so far defined with numbers and probably with pathways connecting because these are predominant planning language we're used to. We need all those languages. They are very inevitable. But at the same time, the moment we are defining access we see from a design perspective, from a social perspective. Just answer the question, who gets what, when and where? So, who is getting the toilet, when and where? So, who actually is the question that leads to inclusivity? So, you are looking at women not accessing, you're looking at transgender community not accessing, on toilets not accessible for them. That is kind of a grave undemocratic disability and you are not having kids accessing. So, even if you're looking at communities where you have kids toilets, kids everywhere, even if in an audience state, in the low income households and communities, kids are meant to open the gate. Mothers will conveniently let the kids open the gate. What happens that is leading to very commonly seen patterns of diarrhea in the communities, which is leading to kind of malnutrition, which is leading to irregular presence in schools, which is leading to a probably a form of citizen who might otherwise might have done a better process or job in their learning process. So, in a way you are producing a form of productive citizen with the form of retardation in their learning process and growing a process through a malfunctioning infrastructure. So, in a way you are affecting your job. Great, now what is the, I mean, maybe two more important coefficients. One, we would like to know your work, how you are able to bring in people and also a paradigm shift into, I would say, planning process or the design process. But before that, what do you think should be a major disruption if I ask you, I mean, we've discussed the current model, which is quite top bottom and it's just an engineering stuff. Fantastic, but what should be the major disruption and what could be a way for, maybe next year when we discuss on World Toilet Day, we said, okay, this is what we suggested and nothing has happened, maybe, but yeah, something has happened. So what do you think should be the major disruption that we need to bring in? So from our point of view, from the kind of work we have done and the experience we've gained, so we can take each of the problem and try to solve it, but make the process to facilitate a very powerful word, which is innovation at the policy level to a grassroots level. So innovation is kind of a loosely used word. So if the policy has to innovate, the policy has to get on the ground, okay? So innovation is all about reading the right knowledge. So what we have is a knowledge gap. So the policy accessing the ground knowledge will innovate the policy. The ground accessing the policy will innovate the ground. So we can give you sort of an example, see. So when you are looking at... Please, yeah, please, yeah. So the way the toilets are framed are ad hoc process by probably one engineer figuring out a piece of land unused and then some compositional lines to make best use of it, okay? So that, let's assume that person is a policy maker. That policy maker has not seen the usage pattern because that policy maker is an engineer in the top layer because in our democratic structure. So the moment the policy maker is given the information that in a row of toilets inside the cubicle, you tend to see the commode, which is a Western or Indian, whichever, you tend to see the commode much cleaner when the light is kept right above it. So the user will tend to clean it. The cleaner will also tend to clean it. Then the policy maker will innovate. The policy maker is getting to see how difficult... So light is so essential, yeah, yeah, yeah. Light is so essential, but that is always mostly kept. So we notice like when it is kept right above the commode and the commode is getting a special attention. The commode will get the special, the very special attention from the user and also from the cleaner. So that is when the policy maker is enabled with the knowledge to innovate, okay? When the policy maker is looking at how difficult the person who's cleaning, how difficult does that person to clean the corners? The policy maker will just innovate how the corner should be like. So how difficult is a brush to go to the corners? You can actually make a difference in a way because these are all like genesis of dirt. Toilet has, so when I say genesis of dirt, it is about a cultural value of dirt because our association with dirt is totally different. So actually instead of making the nation, instead of eradicating ODF, we should have actually learned from the patterns of ODF and reinventing because that, so from using our discard as a manure in a flush. So Ganga, before, I mean, I'm just curious to know when you just created this term, our notion of culture of dirt. So what is our notion and what should not be our notion? Yeah, so there's nothing wrong in keeping the notions. So I don't know if they're like, what should not be our notions, but we haven't had enough notions are our problem. So that's when like you define ODF, before you define ODF, you try to eradicate. So before you read what ODF meant. Yeah, that's important. And intervention was something alien. So there is nothing that facilitated to go back and check, how can we reinvent that? Because there was a pattern of networking. There was a pattern of resources going back as manure. There was some errors in that class. Instead of fixing that errors, we eradicated that. Now we are like flushing to forget. And that's- I just want to share a very funny anecdote with you. I don't know how much you like apples, but since I come from a state that produce apples and guess the best apple-producing villages in Himachal are Nako and Changupo. And what they use is human manure. Because they have those dry toilets exactly upon you. And you know exactly the reverse what we did in lay because I was instrumental in writing the vision document of lay. And you won't believe because tourism and flux now shifted from their dry toilets to the flush stuff. And now they've already contaminated 95% of their water sources, which are not even 10 meters below. So yeah, so exactly the point that you're saying. Yeah, please go ahead. So yeah, what we did is from our recycling and reuse perspective, we just shifted to flushing and forgetting. Yeah, yeah. Then all the public sector STPs are the biggest polluters of our entire water network. So what are we doing? So I remember Ganga, your teacher and also not my formal teacher, but my teacher also. Katie reminds me of his very famous proverbial anecdotes that he shares is that the solution to pollution is dilution. And he said, we borrowed it from the West, you know? And that's how the public health crisis, I mean really led to urban planning. And exactly the same is what we are doing here. You know, flushing it and taking to the STPs and then further contaminating the entire ecosystem or aquifers. Yeah, exactly. Please, please, please. I just want to- Katie, I can draw a very simple, a little bit of defining it, that is, as of now, what has to go to soil is going to the water. Yeah. And what has to go to the water is going to the soil. Yeah. True. We made that. Okay, we made that. And now we are struggling and spending close to this in reverse, it has been made out of the funding. Now, yeah. Now, Ganga, we would like to know more about, you know, the work that you've been able to do, you know? So, I mean, particularly about Kerala, because I was part of your talk in the Habitat Center. So if you could just share, you know, the entire process of engaging with the communities and bringing in some alternatives, paradigm change. I mean, I think everyone would love to watch that in here. So, it's a very multilayered process, because we started with our ego getting crumbled, that designers can't just solve the challenge. Come again? The designers can't just solve. Okay. The infrastructure designers will not do that. Because as we read toilets more and more, the toilets became like such a huge and complex issues where you're looking at the infrastructure problem, you're looking at the worker problem, you're looking at the gender problem. And you're looking at the politics of past, which is like very important. And so it is going like multilayered. And the whole system is already dealt as a building problem, but the complexity is way higher than what we're looking at. So that is when we thought we are not enough. So we created a platform for protest. That is called Kutuz App. That is called? So it's an app. And it's Kutuz App. So Kutuz is a Malayalam and Tamil word for toilet. Okay. And you leverage like whichever language you have as your mother tongue. If you just think mostly, most of the context, that word, the word for toilet in your native language always comes with a form of sheen. So we took it as the brand name for the movement. So the app was never a solution. App was a platform for protest. You can go to the toilet, you can add all the information to the toilet. And you can also read the toilets. You can also put a picture because there is a story of toilet or there are many toilet stories inside every individuals in a country. And all those stories are sadly negative. So we wanted them to totally flow out there. And then we did this mapathons. So that kind of knowledge, which is probably democratically produced, became a very powerful thing. But if that changed the entire time, it's the understanding that one phenomenon. So that is when you're looking at what is the meaning of that story. I don't know if you can, if you have thought about it, most of the commercial streets, many areas are not facilitated with the public or common toilets. And probably then the casualty wing of the hospitals, hospitals that have a toilet inside that behaves like a public. And you're looking at toilets being occupied or converted to probably a shop. So you're looking at toilets being vandalized by very interesting other uses. Because in a place where cigarette smoking in public is banned, you will see a different form. And that's the only thing you can bring a cigarette smoke, you will have to pay for smoking. But if you're buying from my shop, you can smoke for free. Okay, so we are selling everything else other than toilet in a toilet. So which means we are underplaying that infrastructure. And somehow we have fabricated that notion that it is underplayed in our all consciousness. So we have a company, but it's never alarming. So it is something that has normalized and there is a lot of vested interest in normalizing because every toilet carries a grain network in the city. So that platform enabled the designers and policy makers also. So maybe that is where for the first time you're looking at the distribution on a map. That is when we are looking at what is the meaning of accessibility for most of the corporations might give us a list of X number of toilets. And when you're putting it up as a democratic process, you will get to see four X number of toilets. So public will count a public library toilet, which is public, okay. Public will count any other public infrastructure government office toilet for that matter. Or probably many other private producers that are also there. So that data is very interesting. So that data gave us an idea of like, why can't we have a toilet master plan for a city? The city is leveraging master plan for everything that is supporting the economy. So you build that toilet master plan. You don't call it a city senate patient plan, but a toilet master plan. Yeah, because so I don't know if any city has a burning desire to make it. Winning the public transport because we have like different cities expressing different needs as stakeholders. So this is a macro perspective, but when you go down, so I was talking about the light, I was talking about the corners because nobody has the sensitivity for standing what is needed because nobody granted. It's toilet surgeries to understand the chemistry. I was for toilet surgeries and chemistry of the toilets. Yeah, great. And that led us to come up with something called a toilet toolkit. So using the toolkit, anybody in the system can actually make a toilet, at least much better. And so why we call it a toolkit and why we're not calling it guideline is toolkit can help you in a way. Okay. So one innovation we did is very strange because we face this very strange phenomenon of vandalism purposefully. So every toilet we go back every week. So with the toolkit enabled toilet, actually enable us to innovate with reflections. So the question is really vandalized looking at yours. So you're bringing that idea of self which is already there in the toilet in an exaggerated way. So certainly in two months, you never call back to the toilet for any format. So maybe as a designer, you can existentially also look at your toilet. So that is where innovation is really but from a design perspective or from planning perspective, we thought it was a design from all the sensitive forms of how a user and probably a cleaner will look at a toilet to toolkit is one form of innovation we could make. Apparently we are also working with you in. With? You in. Okay. Yeah. So that's when the question is like what has an open design and what to do with. So we are taught to look at just physical context. Mourin is a very important context because the entry of any toilet is defined. So the toilet will have a smell emitting rate list, defined agreement. And that's a very important agent working in a toilet. And we are exploring its productive side of by extracting a struvite from the unit. So that might inform the physical design of a toilet because of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, exactly. And you don't need heavy infrastructures in place of it. So then we are looking at context which are not conditioned to be context. Even context there. So sanitation literacy is one important component. Okay, okay. And the kids interface with, because kids are never consumers of toilet. And so in the low income communities especially. And so ODF survey is a quantitative survey where it is an infrastructure getting survey where more than the culture getting survey. So that is where the same kid going up is actually like the holders of culture going. So that is where we are engaging in sanitation literacy where toilet becomes a different form of knowledge system that we can spread. So how do you go about sanitation literacy? You visit schools, just share your toolkits. I mean, what is the mode in which you are spreading this word? So sanitation literacy is a component where beyond awareness and education can totally be an agent of enlightenment. Okay, that's interesting. I think it's good for us. So it could just might as well happen. So we're trying up with the government schools in the first place where it is about, not about teaching and learning alone, it is also about unlearning. So it is about the leadership responding to the context from the school. It is about unlearning and awareness of what, all of it because every school has the maximum number of dollars in the camps because every fund is getting spent on producing and the next fund is getting spend on producing. The same happens with the city also. So that's what the fund which is coming in the next pages for again producing and the same whole. So when we did the snapathon, we got like $1,459 in the city like Chennai and out of more than 850 belongs to the Chennai Corporation. So we're still building new, but the old school are waiting for new stock to join them. So the same thing happens in the school. So it is about like, your cognition getting alert on what is existing and let it go from learning. Great. So thank you so much. It's really being, as you said, the enlightenment from the toilet. I think this World Toilet Day today is also, would be kind of enlightenment from this discussion that we had and thank you.