Loo and behold! Not on track, use these bio toilets, says Rail Budget

Indian Railways has come a long way from the time of the hapless Okhil Chandra Sen who was “doing the nuisance” at Ahmedpur station in 1909 when the guard blew his whistle and the train began to move, leaving him “running with ‘lotah’ in one hand and ‘dhoti’ in the next”, and eventually falling over to expose his “shockings to man and female women on plateform”. Doubtless latter-day Okhilbabus will no longer be thus inconvenienced, much less peenalised, for answering the call of nature at inopportune moments or places now that 17,000 bio toilets and additional toilets in 475 stations will offer ample relief facilities by the end of this fiscal, as announced by the latest Railway budget.

However, an Indian being arrested, tried and finally fined £1,000 for urinating during an Air India flight to Birmingham in mid-January shows how this urge to spurt is not a wee issue even in a more modern mode of passenger transport.

For, this NRI is but the latest in a not-so-honourable line of those who cannot resist spending a penny in high places, including French actor Gérard Depardieu. Indeed, the NRI’s action appears to reinforce the 2014 conclusion of a bench of the Delhi High Court that it is impossible to restrain Indian men from urinating in public — inasmuch as an aeroplane cabin constitutes such a space.