I was tensed and confused; the call of nature was living on the edge. I looked around for a toilet and prayed God to help me out. Interestingly, I found God on those compound walls but not a single toilet.
This incident flashed in my mind when my client asked me to design a compound wall for his residence using the commonly adopted concept of cladding ceramic tiles containing religious graffiti’s to avoid passerbies from urinating on compound walls. I was surprised and started thinking of making it non communal, at the least.
I replaced the same with my experimental secular approach, by introducing a signage board reading –“way to toilet” with arrows repeating at every one meter interval until they vanished at the neighbours’ site.
I was shocked to see the results the very next day — the problems got transferred to the next house. Luckily they did not put a reverse arrow and instead they transferred it to the next which continued crossing 3 main roads, 80 houses, 2 bus stops, 1 police station and 1 park. Finally, the subject reached its climax with partially wetted pants at Nirmala public toilet.
I wonder when BBMP and citizens will help in erasing these arrows and replacing them with blossoms on my client’s compound wall.
Story by : Gouthama D.M.
Mud Hands
The Earth Architecture
http://www.mudhands.com/
