I am by no means a qualified toilet designer. I have of course the distinction of having had the opportunity of trying out almost every kind of toilet there is in the world thanks to my bladdy urges. And over the years my demand to any of my clients who were footing the bill used to only be – get me a room with a clean bed and a cleaner bathroom.

I mean I am not fussy by nature. I am just a bit of a privacy freak and a regular visitor to the toilets of all the places my journey in life takes me.

And because I travel so extensively I have run the whole gamut, from open air ‘behind the bushes’ experiences to fancy bidet accompanied fantasies.

The most fascinating toilet anecdote I love to share with friends harks back to the days when I was in Chennai as a student and the helmet rule was being tried out. There was a theatre complex called Sapphire that included the infamous Blue Diamond Cinema. The toilet at Sapphire was cavernous. Nice and roomy, no need to tuck in your sides to enter the urinal cubicle as you need to nowadays at some public facilities. But the unique part of the Sapphire toilet was that not only were there urinals embedded into the four walls of the toilet hall but there was a central half wall that ran the length of the room and they had installed urinals on both sides of the wall.

While this effectively increased the number of urinals available and eased a lot of pressure for the patrons, it also created a situation where about 20 men had to pee while facing 20 other men who were also engaged in the same occupation. This resulted in a truly comical scene.

Without meaning to get into gross detail, suffice to say that the facial expressions that are displayed when a man is taking a pee and thinks no one is watching, are a lesson in the art of the navarasaas. Now imagine what happens when you realise that your privacy has been compromised and that you have to pee while exchanging expressions with the man in front of you. To complicate life further the helmet rule and the fear that helmets left on the bike in parking lots could be flicked, meant that most men during the interval actually put on their helmets to eat a snack or pee.

So the scene: A row of helmet clad men contorting their faces through the various degrees of pleasure as the pressure that had been built up was released in the much needed interval. And standing opposite them were more helmet clad men going through the same expressions. It was a sight mind you that gave me several funny images that I sketched in my mind and erased only when Sapphire Complex was demolished.

The lesson in this case was simple. Do not ever build urinals wherein men have to face-off with other men. It makes the whole scene look as if the men were pissing on each other. And luckily I have yet to see another facility where the same kind of scenario is reconstructed.

What however bothers me now is the propensity in Hyderabad to add a single urinal to a bathroom in the interest of saving water.

How this phenomenon evolved is perhaps as follow:-

A place is chosen to house a restaurant or a cafe or an office.

It is confirmed that there are two toilets so that the men and women can have separate domains.

Then someone realises that integrating a urinal into the Men’s Loo may be a nice water saving idea.

The plumber is called and the urinal affixed. And only later does anyone realise that because the toilet was originally designed to hold just the pot and the wash basin and perhaps a shower, there is no room to fix the urinal except on the wall next to the pot.

While the aesthetics of the toilet are marred by this out of turn addition to the loo, what happens is that if someone was to use the pot he would find himself face to face with the bowl of the urinal and have to inhale a lot of ammonia while going about his business.

I have seen this urinal in your face phenomenon in too many places for me not to be concerned. And I really wonder why the toilet designers and management members have been so blind to this ridiculously embarrassing situation.

I have kids who hold on till they come home for lunch to use the loo because the toilet in the office is so dirty or because it is poorly designed. I hope the designers who read  this put their minds to the problem and do something tangible to change things. And the same goes for managers and company owners who think everything is hunky dory and picture perfect simply because they never have to use the junta loos themselves.