Flush hour
On Movie Q2P – The toilet is a prism in the film
Sulakshana Gupta
Mumbai: It’s a film that will prompt most viewers to make a beeline for the loo. But in this case that’s a good thing. Filmmaker Paromita Vohra’s latest, Q2P sweeps through the issue of public toilets and makes us thankful for the commodes in our homes.
‘‘The toilet is a prism in the film. When you go out and see who has to queue to pee, you figure out who has a stake in the country’s development,’’ says Vohra, seated at her Andheri residence. In a film about the dynamics of access, she links ideas of gender, class and caste with that of sanitation. Most of us associate public loos with Sulabh International, and for that, Vohra’s film indulges us with a tour of the Sulabh museum in Delhi, past painted urinals, archival photos and even the replica of a French throne with a hidden pot.
The curator cheekily narrates how plucking a rose became an euphemism for a trip to the john. In the early days in England, before every house had a toilet, when ladies at a soiree needed to relieve themselves, they stepped into the bushes. And when asked where they were, the answer would be, ‘‘I was plucking a rose.’’
Other than the century, not much has changed today. Toilets are still more accessible to men than women, who have to either hold on till midday or navigate through the crowds that spill over from the Gents’ side. ‘‘When society thinks of women, they only do so sexually, and talk about rape and violence. But isn’t the inability to pee a form of violence?’’ questions the director.
Vohra juxtaposes the dream of Shanghai II with ground realities, that our cities are built on rock solid inequalities. While glass offices continue to proliferate and a Delhi municipal officer dreams of building ‘‘toilets that don’t look like toilets,’’ girl children and female teachers in Mumbai’s BMC schools battle urinary infections—a by-product of zero toilet facilities.
The film offers no shocking revelations or learnings, aside from the use of a paper funnel called the peemate that helps women urinate without squatting, and an anecdote about a Muslim slum where the latrines are crooked so that they don’t face Mecca. But the film progresses like a personal essay, with grassroot characters, where the writer learns as much from the project as the viewer.
Vohra contains her Hitchcockian instincts and refrains from making a cameo appearance, like in most of her previous works. ‘‘I pretty much felt my way through this one because there was such little information available on the subject. Whenever we read something relevant in the newspapers, we immediately pounced on it,’’ she says. Like the Reclaim the Night event at Gateway of India, where a group of women stayed out till dawn. ‘‘We hung around waiting till everyone got off the boat and needed to go to the loo, then shot them,’’ she says.
As the film shows us, it’s not just the poor who struggle with their bladders. But for the better heeled, it’s easy to pass off as a guest in a five star hotel. Vohra says, ‘‘We all pee, we all shit, so how come we’re so silent about it?’’
At NCPA, Nariman Point, August 18, 6.30 pm
URL- http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=196974