Cleaning our Backsides and Toilets

Ohhh it saddened my heart to read about the little girl. It is the responsibility of the high authorities that let this kind of stuff go on. It is so sad that her life ended this way.

I agree with the OP...we have to clean our own bums...why depend on someone else to clean the bathroom?

This post reminded me of a relatives visit to India. The relative was visiting his paternal side of extended family. One morning while they were there, the host was being very rude to his servants and maids. He was making all kinds of remarks to them. As they were sitting down for breakfast, my relative asked...who prepared the meal? The host said the servants did. So the relative asked him...here earlier you were very rude to them and making remarks like they are low caste etc...but its ok for you to wear the clothes they wash for you, eat what they have prepared and walk on the floor they have swept and mopped...
He left the host a bit speechless..........

OOPALL

 

I will be opening a separate thread on this topic under the society section. I humbly post the link to views of Swami Vivekananda on the topic.

Caste Problem in India

Excerpt below:
---

UNTOUCHABILITY - A SUPERSTITIOUS ACCRETION​

Formerly the characteristic of the noble-minded was - (tribhuvanamupakara shrenibhih priyamanah) "to please the whole universe by one's numerous acts of service", but now it is - I am pure and the whole world is impure. "Don't touch me!" "Don't touch me!" The whole world is impure, and I alone am pure! Lucid Brahmajnana! Bravo! Great God! Nowadays, Brahman is neither in the recesses of the heart, nor in the highest heaven, nor in all beings - now He is in the cooking pot!​

We are orthodox Hindus, but we refuse entirely to identify ourselves with "Don't- touchism". That is not Hinduism; it is in none of our books; it is an orthodox superstition, which has interfered with national efficiency all along the line. Religion has entered in the cooking pot. The present religion of the Hindus is neither the path of Knowledge or Reason - it is "Don't-touchism". - "Don't touch me", "Don't touch me" - that exhausts its description.
"Don't touchism" is a form of mental disease. Beware! All expansion is life, all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. See that you do not lose your lives in this dire irreligion of "Don't- touchism". Must the teaching (Atmavat sarvabhuteshu) - "Looking upon all beings as your own self" - be confined to books alone? How will they grant salvation who cannot feed a hungry mouth with a crumb of bread? How will those, who become impure at the mere breath of others, purify others?
We must cease to tyrannize. To what a ludicrous state are we brought! If a bhangi comes to anybody as a bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague; but no sooner does he get a cupful of water poured upon his head with some muttering of prayers by a padri, and get a coat to his back, no matter how threadbare, and come into the room of the most orthodox Hindu, I don't see the man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty shake of hands! Irony can go no farther.
Just see, for want of sympathy from the Hindus, thousands of pariahs in Madras are turning Christians. Don't think that this is simply due to the pinch of hunger; it is because they do not get any sympathy from us. We are day and night calling out to them "Don't touch us! Don't touch us!" Is there any compassion or kindliness of heart in the country? Only a class of "Don't-touchists" ; kick such customs out! I sometimes feel the urge to break the barriers of "Don't-touchism", go at once and call out, "Come all who are poor, miserable, wretched and downtrodden", and to bring them all together. Unless they rise, the Mother will not awake.
Each Hindu, I say, is a brother to every other, and it is we, who have degraded them by our outcry, "Don't touch", "Don't touch!" And so the whole country has been plunged to the utmost depths of meanness, cowardice and ignorance. These men have to be lifted; words of hope and faith have to be proclaimed to them. We have to tell them, "You are also men like us and you have all the rights that we have."


....

 

Hi kamalji,

by the way aaj kal too much about toilets from you.:rotfl:rotfl
my heart goes out to that little girl... really, what cruel things go on in this world?
But well said about the dignity of labour.my dd will be going to UK for one year and I am teaching her all the basic skills of housekeeping..she should be able to manage her room on her own at least if not a house....she was shocked that she will have to clean her own toilet and I was telling her if the maid is not there thats what i have been doing all these years.so basically we are all spoilt .....it is better to teach them when they are young.
hahahh to all the jokes.

 

Okay, I am back now but only a little less mad at the bullies and insensitive teachers of the world.

Your logic is impeccable. If folks can clean their own backsides, what is so hard about cleaning their own toilets? But somehow in India, this chore is considered to be beneath one's station in life. There is indeed dignity in all the work and it is a great message to feed the youngsters of today.

In the US, we all have to clean our own homes and tend our own gardens. I may not necessarily want to do these at all times but I do them anyway. Because of this, I have learned to appreciate those that do hard labor for a living.

No one but you, Kamalji, can take a subject that most would consider unfit for public forums and spin it out with enough entertainment that the point reaches across and makes one take a moment or two to consider the subject. My hats off to you for this skill.