They might still exist in colonies/chawls having common toilets like the municipal scavenger workers.
(chawls of Mumbai or places where the water tap/well and toilets were commonly owned and so a source of bad relationships and gossip and disgust and in many cases unhygienic.)
Even new chawls of Mumbai might being built with toilets in house, though new chawls won't come up as easily as they did earlier as the concept is dying out.
So toilet cleaners existed in the era of toilets without flush or strong toilet cleaning liquids.
But i am surprised why family members did not do it.
Basically it was asking someone else to clean the toilets because family members won't do it !
The origin of toilet cleaners might be era of dirty "toilets outside the house" that continued till the "dirty near/inside house toilets".
Overall it is stigma whether family member does it or toilet cleaners do it.
Not sure if we should thank tap water and flush or Europeans for doing away with disgusting profession at least in some ways in India, even if centuries after the concept came up in Europe.
Thank you for Mythili´s article. Indoia may be short on toilet cleaners, but certainly not on great english writers....
They might still exist in colonies/chawls having common toilets like the municipal scavenger workers.
(chawls of Mumbai or places where the water tap/well and toilets were commonly owned and so a source of bad relationships and gossip and disgust and in many cases unhygienic.)
Even new chawls of Mumbai might being built with toilets in house, though new chawls won't come up as easily as they did earlier as the concept is dying out.
So toilet cleaners existed in the era of toilets without flush or strong toilet cleaning liquids.
But i am surprised why family members did not do it.
Basically it was asking someone else to clean the toilets because family members won't do it !
The origin of toilet cleaners might be era of dirty "toilets outside the house" that continued till the "dirty near/inside house toilets".
Overall it is stigma whether family member does it or toilet cleaners do it.
Not sure if we should thank tap water and flush or Europeans for doing away with disgusting profession at least in some ways in India, even if centuries after the concept came up in Europe.
Frankly Pallavi, a very disappointing column. I guess Mythili should stick to writing about Finance and Economics. No take aways a all.