The Obsession with Cleanliness

vinod, I have to agree with you at least partially. there is an obsession with cleanliness that is ridiculous here in the US... everything is "antibacterial" and we've never been a sicker lot. These antibacterial hand washes and such do not discriminate between good and bad bacteria, and we've wiped out all the stuff in our systems that helps us fight off the big bad stuff. then we have to buy things like yogurts with probiotics to replenish the stuff than should be there.

People are shocked when I am not fussing over my daughter and washing her hands at every turn. she is much more healthy than many of her friends.

although I will say that things being clean, in terms of not covered in dirt and dust and grime, is important. I cannot stand eating at peoples' houses who are not clean in that regard. it freaks me out.

Dear Vinod,

Excellent observation. In the United States the obsession with cleanliness is as obsessive. Of course in India we have a long way to go. Of late railway stations (not Mumbai perhaps, which I haven't visited in the last 15 years) and bus stations have improved some.

I think the reason for allergies are manifold. Obsessive cleanliness has to be one of them. It could also be because of all the chemicals we consume in the form of additives. Take aspartame for example. In the name of sugar free, we consume a lot of such dangerous stuff, FDA assurances notwithstanding. Lack of proper exercise, excessive junk food consumption does surely compromise our immunity.

I live in Phoenix, where it is very dry most of the time, and extremely hot in summer. People moving here typically develop asthma and allergies after a few years even though they didn't have them before. That suggests to me there is some connection between proper breathing and allergies as well. There is a lot of pollen pollution here.

Regards,

Ravi

I am not an organized person at all so I can get very messy. BUT when it comes to cleanliness in terms of hygiene I would much rather have people, society and myself err on the side of cleanliness and good hygiene rather than the alternative. Cleanliness freaks (Windex and Chlorox happy) and OCD people (those who scrub till it bleeds) scare me too but I appreciate the clean cities and public toilets and trains and local transport services in some of the Western countries. I absolutely LOVE that about the US. When I go back to India I am absolutely disgusted by the urine tracks, paan (beetel leaf) stains, cigarette stubs, spit marks on every road, building and stairway in Bombay. Here in the US too, I see Indians being less careful about littering than their American counterparts. Has anybody been to Oak Tree Road, New Jersey, a desi hub in NJ...why is it so much filthier than the rest of the Garden State?? I mean, Indians have gotten this reputation of being such habitual litterers, its embarrassing.

You have cited examples of Japan, Australia and England but what about India? There is absolutely no sense of communal hygiene. I don't understand why this is. Personally I wish the cleanliness obsession would move Eastwards and reach Asia. Wouldn't one prefer a cleanliness obsession rather than a nonchalant carelessness when it comes to hygiene? I know I would.

Is blaming Indians/Asians an oversimplification?

While I roamed the dirty streets of Antwerp, I was surprised to see the uncleanliness of place among pre dusk bearded Jew hoppers, unkept train stations in daytime, beggars around the church, and unseeming nightlife with pakis and Indians cooking tasty meals on roadside. There were non desi restraunts as well notably the turkish ones.

take a walk from munich station and you can remind yourself of how cleanliness matters. similarly take a walk outside the railway station of India's costliest clean city Surat and you will feel the same.

If you were to take a room from a Japanese, be sure the distinct dry fishy smell will last for some weeks. If you were to come in talking space with a chinese colleague, be sure you manage to ignore his breath. How does cleanliness manifest, not just clean clothes and keeping dirt away right?

The so-called "executive coach class" of Shatabdi Express from Bangalore to Chennai features cockroaches all over the drapery and the armrests that don't mind hopping on to your shirt sleeves from time to time. Not to mention the occasional mouse that can be seen scurrying on the floor.

Lezdius : lol, executive class for old time (over millions of years) tested species like cockroaches and mouse. They r super exective cockroaches visting their cousins in bangalore.

"Are we, at least in parts of the world which have achieved a relative degree of economic prosperity, moving towards unnecessary cleanliness"


you have raised a very good point.
allow me to rephrase this sentence of yours

"are we, atleast in parts of the world which have achieved economic prosperity, equality of genders/races, equal opportunity, eliminated discrimination etc, moving towards unnecessary political correctness"

people obsessed with too much cleanliness/political correctness are anally fixated in their childhood.

Aditi #3, I agree that in India a sense of communal hygiene is definitely lacking. You ask “Wouldn't one prefer a cleanliness obsession rather than a nonchalant carelessness when it comes to hygiene?� I don’t have an easy answer to that. I wish I could agree with you, but if you look at the impact on the environment, which is what really matters in the long run, the clean ‘west’ has done a lot more damage than the dirty and unclean ‘east/orient.’ Per capita destruction of the environment is much, much higher in the clean and tidy parts of the world.

"if you look at the impact on the environment, which is what really matters in the long run, the clean ‘west’ has done a lot more damage than the dirty and unclean ‘east/orient"

You are making a faulty association here Vinod. The damage to the environment in the West is not a direct result of their communal hygiene....similarly the lack of communal hygiene in India is not contributing towards how we are treating our environment. :)

This is kind of like saying that India has a low divorce rate. India also has a lack of communal hygiene. Therefore, the low divorce rate is causing the lack of communal hygiene. Its a faulty association. There are several other factors in the Western world which are contributing towards the environmental damage: use of electricity, plastic etc and not their sense of communal hygiene.

One can have an environment friendly society where members manage to not spit on roads, litter railway stations and piss on random walls, I think. In that sense, I do prefer the West's obsession with cleanliness.

India's divorce rate is growing. we will have more households and hence consume more electricity, plastic, bottled water which will further agravate
the climate change thing. More mobility in India means more unclean rail stations, lesser control, more wasteful expenditure.

India is on its way to be the ghost of the world.

Slime: I did not know that when people lived apart they started consuming more plastic and water! :)

Also, the case in point was an example to show how any association can be made between 2 random things which may or may not be mutually related: you seem to have aided my point with your far fetched extrapolation of how divorce rates will accelerate climate change :)

Aditi

I am not making the case about divorce. I am just quoting the relation of households to consumption. Even 1% rise in India in population terms is mind boggling and household increase triples it. Some couples own 2-4 homes in Bangalore and keep them idle. Each of them are households right?

Well, i present you some mind boggling elitism from west. They speak about Plastic 2.0 which I like.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6665855.ece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaE5pQAR

Slime: I would hate to take this thread off-track but you are confusing "houses" with households. People consume more energy than just an unoccupied property. A house by itself does not consume anything. It just sits there. A household consists of people who use electricity, plastic, water and energy.

Now, if you speak against divorce because of what it does to the environment, I can similarly make a case against marriage: Upon getting married, most couples have children and those kids use up more energy. The increase in population that you speak of can be attributed to these happily married couples who are happily procreating. Therefore, married people are more harmful to the environment than divorced or single people who are less likely to have children. So divorces and bachelorhood are environment friendly! :)

My point: If one wants to prove their hypothesis then all they have to do is find some far fetched correlation to make it stick.

Aditi,

You can win the war here in this thread. You and I know we cant win the war on climate change unless we have a world strategy.

I just said that cleanliness drive is elitist attitude of west. If it has contributed to climate change, lets keep those habits otherwise drop them. Single, Mingle, Couple, no hold, full hold houses are ways to define homes. Consumption, Mobility are transactionary in nature. If something is bad, lets drop it, if 25% unclean is better , lets adopt it.

US government must let go of its rigid stance of climate change and cut emissions. India can help later. But onus is US govt to lead this. Blaming India is as simplistic as you have mentioned by using stances which an be argued either way.

Slime "I just said that cleanliness drive is elitist attitude of west"

A lack of hygiene and communal cleanliness in India has given us infectious diseases, epidemics every monsoon season, unsafe drinking water and a hoard of other problems. And you call a sense of communal hygiene elitist? You are either kidding me or much worse: you are kidding yourself.

Please read thsi report and find out what the water in India contains. One has a choice between drinking water infested with human shit or a cocktail of powerful drugs. Take your pick and sip on it while you rant against the "elitist" and over clean West:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/26/world/main4752641.shtml

As I said earlier, one can have an environment friendly plan for communal hygiene. It does NOT have to be one or the other. Its a stupid argument.

In a time when the sense of communal hygiene in India needs to be underlined, stressed upon and inculcated into society such an article and totally illogical comments claiming that communal or social hygiene is elitist is highly detrimental and seem almost counter-intuitive.

P.S: You seem to think that logical refute of your lame arguments is "war". I too have written previous posts regarding environment protection, none of them involved abandoning cleanliness! It makes no sense.

aditi... who in their right mind argues that simple hygiene is elitist? it is not like we've said one must stop eating with one's hands. we've just proven that washing them before you do so is advisable. :)

unbefreakingleavable. hooray, cholera for all!

like this debate , continue.

i wud rather not want an elitist come to india and define hygiene. I mean ss, she forgets we have more people living on cheaper health than her country. the best health.

do u know ur country cannot afford health insurance for low paying people. here is study from your own country.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10347&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social-media&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=visits

Another figure why Us income tax rates will touch 50% for high income earners.

The Democrat’s latest plan to raise money for federal health care expansion is to impose surtaxes ranging from 1 percent to 3 percent on higher-income earners.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/07/13/half-for-the-government/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social-media&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=visits

Anyone notice a difference in cleanliness level between large Indian cities? For example, I find Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai (in that order) much cleaner than Mumbai while comparing reasonably middle class localities and supposed upscale commercial areas.

My concern is whether cities in India have accepted whatever level of cleanliness they have as normal, without striving to improve their conditions. Citizens seem to wake up and protest only when things get worse since they are inured by already bad conditions.

uh slime, don't patronize me honey... I lived in India in a regular middle class Bangalore neighborhood for 2 years. Not some fancy ex-pat place, but a regular neighborhood. so spare me your ridiculous comparisons, as well as the misdirection to the price and availability of healthcare... which is NOT the topic at hand.

and Ajay, yes I did notice. I actually found a lot of places in Delhi much cleaner than Bangalore, which is in turn much cleaner than Mumbai. But Mumbai is a much different city than the other 3 you mentioned. It is the place that both rich and insanely poor alike go to make something of themselves, and most do!

If people are clean and live in clean environment less will fall sick. We don't need a doctor to tell us that. And what hygiene? I've seen naked dirty toddlers in my village running around bare foot shitting all over the place while their parents seem relatively clean, wear shoes and use the nearby washrooms provided by the landlords.

Sympathy for the poor is one thing but excusing dirty habits which can be avoided is stupidity!

Not that I am sparing the rich who live in big bungalows and yet aren't willing to pay the garbage guy a buck or two.

And the nasty habit of peeing in public by men (rich and poor alike) and the pawing the crotch gets my goat every time.

Oh,

Is Bangalore cholera free. did ss live in this beautiful neighbourhood. wonderful. Then you are not fancy uh. my mistake for your thinking India as one big cholera country.

how is swine flu deaths in ur country. how many deaths have you been able to stop? in this ountry it is 0 despite the bad bad bad bad bad hygiene.

my comparisions re ridiulous to your head not facts. read them and justify why rich , yes fancy rich think they own healthcare and why cheap healthcare is getting extinct.. oh oh uh uh.. voices from my chords.. my goodness... mumbai is as dirty as ur shitty rome .. all horsewdung and smelling.. now i know u r above fancy..

Slime, you are witching hunting SS needlessly. America has its issues and we have our own. Lack of hygiene and living in filth happens to be our biggest problems due to lack of education and overpopulation. Acknowledge it and do your bit to keep your surroundings clean instead of taking pot shots at people for stating the obvious.

Deepti,

thats what i offered to aditi that good habits we keep. bad habits we remove.

who is witch hunting thereafter #14?

look at all ss nonsense comments #16, #20 as if expats are a treasure nobility. I never said we have a good hygiene lekin jitna ho pata hain, karte hein. that you cannot label india with some cbs news and argue in a unfancy manner.

i dont care for such hypocritial people.

Slime, I read the entire thread. What you don't care for is a foreigner talking about what ails the country. Its a knee jerk reaction. Plain and simple and reeks of racism. If an Indian said the same thing your reaction would have been less ferocious.

She didn't call India a land of cholera. She said - Cholera for all if you don't want hands. There is a huge difference between the two statements.

Aditi#9,
“The damage to the environment in the West is not a direct result of their communal hygiene�
To an extent you are right. However, the ‘Western’ obsession with cleanliness, the excessive use of disinfectants, wipes packaging etc. does contribute to the environmental damage caused by the west.
The obsession with cleanliness goes hand-in-hand with an obsession for perfect aesthetics. Most flats in the west prohibit residents from hanging their washing on balconies. It is a fact that flats cease to look very smart if festooned with washing like a Christmas tree. But in a cold climate, it takes an unbelievable amount of electricity to tumble dry clothes.
“....similarly the lack of communal hygiene in India is not contributing towards how we are treating our environment.�
To a large extent you are right. Lack of affluence is one reason why Indians don’t damage the environment as much as westerners. If Indians had as much per capita income as people in the west, India too would contribute as much towards global warming.
“One can have an environment friendly society where members manage to not spit on roads, litter railway stations and piss on random walls, I think.�
In theory yes, but generally speaking, affluent societies are cleaner than poor ones, since they can afford to pay for it. In the UK, every Saturday and Sunday mornings, most public areas look like warzones. There is puke everywhere, broken glass and beer bottles littered all over. But by 9 a.m. everything is clean, with all the dirt swept away by council workers who work for minimum wage and are paid for by the hefty local council taxes paid by all residents. If India could afford as many cleaners and trash collectors and an enforcement mechanism for fining people who spit and litter, India would be as clean as any western country. Singapore is a case in point. As dirty and filthy as India was 50 years ago, its growing affluence meant the government could afford a decent cleanliness campaign.

why wud anyone want cholera for all? why? we dont want anything all for all?

what is racisim here? here is no knee jerk reaction. Here i have given two cato links and she rejects it as ridiculous. western people must learn to take india as seriously they wud like to take us. what racisim is here if two reports have been pointed and ss not invoked?

Is it racist to criticize america as being elitist? is it racist to tell that we Indians have a sense of hygiene , we have money, we will do better hygiene. each candle has its own means of lightness. thats all. is it racist to tell you who is witchhunting , i invoked swine flu only for cholera and asked justification for deaths , in india or elsewhere, how can it be racist?

slime you are LAUGHABLE. I never said the things you claim I said. Dee has explained what I said, because apparently your comprehension skills are low and your propaganda skills are ramped up.

There were many cholera outbreaks when I was in Bangalore, and we know exactly how that is spread. it is not racist to mention it, dear. it only offends your sensibilities because you have a inability to think rationally.

say what you want about Rome. I do not have knee jerk, irrational reactions to criticism.

as for your Cato studies, dear... I said to stay on topic. what do you want me to be "invoked" about. please, you are too silly. honestly. you cannot stay on topic, you link up things that have no natural or reasonable correlation, and you are incapable of having a proper discussion.

stop witch-hunting slime.

ss,

so you saw many cholera outbreaks? is it linked to healthcare or cleanliness..

dear i can laugh if u can't make out what is cholera and what is cheap healthcare. dear ss, glad u have ability to comprehend skills.. bless u and wishu more cholera free stays in india

are you KIDDING me with this slime? yes, there were cholera out breaks when I was there. and for what it is worth, my husband is a doctor. an INDIAN doctor, lest you also want to accuse him of being elitist. and he did his rural postings, and saw cholera and other hygiene-related illness all over the place.

You want me to get ugly with you Slime, here are the facts. He had to go to villages and explain to them that their babies were dying because the place where they insisted on shitting was just uphill from their water source. and you know what, when he told them, they did not believe it and kept shitting there and leaving it uncovered to wash down into their drinking water.

until these kinds of problems are solved, dysentery, cholera and the like will continue to plague places like India.

I love India. I consider it my second home. I love India as she is, with all her flaws and all her glory. But what I am saying is a fact whether you want to be ignorant about it or not.

OK, once again I am done with you. do us all a favor and educate yourself.

SS

I have highst respect to your husband. I know we have outbreaks in Karnataka. The latest outbreak is chikangunya. I dont deny outbreaks. I am saying cholera outbreaks occur. They are ugly. But India is a young republic whose GDP share from 1650 was 35% of world GDP and now around 1% GDP.

The immediate priority is to save people, which means more cheaper health care , cleanliness driv must be attacked as well. Blaming India is simple, lets look at our resources as well. Once we are strong, we will better. Give us time.

look slime, obviously you just do NOT GET IT. (bangs head on table)

THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD IS ABOUT HYGIENE AND IT'S IMPACT, GOOD... BAD, ETC. No one is BLAMING India for anything. We were discussing what needs to change in India for Indian society to not be held down by things like cholera. It is a simple concept.


But nooooooooooo, you must misdirect the conversation with your INANE blathering about elitist this and that.

India does not need time. that is a foolish statement. India is one of the oldest civilizations on earth. It needs more education about preventing disease, and it needs basic sanitation and access to CLEAN drinking water for all people, regardless of social standing or caste. Once people stop shitting in the streets and uphill from their water source, and once they have enough water to drink and use for daily use they might feel they can use some on washing hands, then things will get better.

Learn the goddamned difference between blame and discussion. Your knee jerk reaction and resulting inane and non-related criticism is INSUFFERABLE.

SS

People dont shit on streets becoz they like shitting in open. Try to understand this culture thing is not a easy thing to be done with. Sanitation needs money and the corruption is rampant. Is it a time solution, is cleanliness in India a solitary problem that can be addressed easily?
Cheap drinking water, from where will we get it? who will give funds? how will people use? This all needs time and NREGA kind of schemes address that.

I again say it is multidimensional problem and must be addressed with our resources. India shitting on roads, slums can't be done away by removing these habitats. What will these people eat, what will they wear and what water will they drink? We need resources and at this time, we need education , zero corruption, global strategy and also cheaper healthcare. I will like politicians and elitists to bang their heads to solve this.

We have been suffering for long and putting blame on poor people is the softest way to define the problem. Look at Rhodesia, once white rule went away, they have huge cholera outbreaks and a facisist regime. India is doing its best to fight such regimes and control diseases. Yes we are fighting.

India is the best affordable healthcare in world today. We need to reach to more people. India an be the health engine of world and estimates are by 2015 Health tourism will overtake IT software industry

slime, I think you honestly have a learning disability that prevents you from understanding properly. I say that honestly and not to attack you, but you seem to not know how to comprehend what you have read and then formulate a coherent response that correlates to what was put forth to begin with.

for the last time. I am NOT blaming the poor. not by a long shot. And NOWHERE did I say that the solution is easy. where do you get these notions? I certainly never even implied them. I simply said that EVERYONE needs and deserves access to facilities and clean water.

And keep holding your breath on the health tourism. It is on it's way down because unfortunately, there are major glitches. Major hospitals have recently come under fire for doing things like breaching doctor-patient confidentiality and not following standard protocol... resulting in catastrophic issues including malpractice and patient death. until India increases its medical ethics, the medical tourism trade will be severely hampered. There is virtually no redress in Indian courts, as they are all corrupt and crooked docs are all but untouchable by legal means. The rest of the world would LOVE to come to India for world-class healthcare that is certainly available. But until the 3rd world ethics issues are solved, it won't happen in the numbers you predict.

Honestly done this time. We're getting nowhere.

SS

as we debate to nowhere, the mumbai floods are a disaster now. shame, we have a repeat now. water is rising now.

you r right, we need courts also to function. More then me, the elitists in India and corruption needs to be addressed. Please blame them. Why are you blaming me. I am blaming you in west for not taking our politicians to task when they visit your countries. Make them accountable, show them their responsibilities. US, west must do to bring education to their rulers who simply yawn , shout in parliament.

ss:

digression:

it is called attention seeking syndrome

Temporal bhai,

welcome, the ass syndrome is more with commonsense and nawab;-)

#37:

the former would speak for himself when he returns from his sojourn

the latter, as you know, knows everything

;)