Two things occurred simultaneously; a top Indian actor released a movie about public toilets, and our housing association secretary warned cat lovers to bag their cat poop.

To draw audiences into the theatre on weekends, the actor who had earlier starred in an exciting movie called Airlift about the 1990 evacuation during the Gulf War of more than 100,000 Indians from Kuwait, urged the director to title it, Toilet: A Love Story.

According to movie trade magazines, audiences are not put off by the constipated title, though critics say that it does not offer any relief to the Bollywood film industry that has dumped some clunkers this summer such as Jab Harry met Sejal and ‘Tiger’ Khan’s Tubelight.

Come to think of it I have never met an Indian-origin tourist guide named Harry, anglicised from Harinder Singh, though I have met a Mo, a Sid and a Pakistani called Ash.

Indian audiences and lovers of Bollywood movies worldwide seem to be fed up with love stories, even one that involves a toilet seat, and apparently are looking for something more uplifting.

Anyway, the movie is an attempt to make people use toilets instead of doing their business on the streets or on the wall of some real estate tycoon’s house.

It’s a big issue in India as there are not enough toilets in the villages and in the cities and those that function look and smell like something from an acidic alien hell or Danny Boyle’s movie Trainspotting which was about drug addicts and broken toilets with blackish water.

Going to a toilet is a huge risky business for rural women and girls as paedophiles and predators wait for the females in the dark to kidnap them as they go to the open fields to relieve themselves.

Finding a toilet

Salma Hayek, Hollywood star and friend of the Indian actor, endorsed the movie and tweeted, “..End #OpenDefecation now! No woman should fear going to the toilet! #ToiletEkPremKatha..(Toilet: A Love Story).

Maybe my OCD (Obsessive Compulsory Disorder) behaviour of washing my hands frequently in my teens originated after visiting a public toilet in my hometown. I remember after that putting myself in a storing and holding mode whenever I went out. Luckily, at that time sipping bottled water was not as popular or fashionable as today or there would have been an accident in the bus.

Then it got worse during my stint in the Arab Gulf states because finding a public toilet was even harder. I had to saunter into a five-star hotel pretending that I had just handed over my car keys to the valet, and run around in the huge lobbies trying to locate the washroom as the floor manager walked behind me saying, “May I help you, sir?”

Doctors warn never to hold in your pee or it could lead to long-term damage to your bladder, in extreme cases. If you hold it in to avoid dirty public rest rooms, it may lead to urinary tract symptoms such as frequent and painful urination, which is even worse than having kidney stones that you get for not drinking enough water either in a hot or a cold climate. The association secretary advised tenants and home owners to bag the cat poop in special bags for bio-hazard waste, as if our cat is a mutant animal that has swallowed radioactive waste. A pack of yellow-coloured bags costs Rs200 or about Dh12.

Bengaluru, also known as India’s Garden City, is trying to keep the streets clean and has banned plastic bags and is urging residents to segregate their waste.

It is high time this IT (Information Technology) hub floats a start-up for portable toilets which people can carry in their office bags and one that dissolves into nothingness like the disappearing photos or videos on Instagram.

Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. You can follow him on Twitter: @mahmood_saberi.