KARACHI, Aug 5: There seem to be so many negative aspects to our society. One of them seems to be answering almost anywhere and at anytime to the call of nature.

We all have done it at some point in our lives, though most of us will be ashamed to admit it. While there are those who do it almost habitually without so much as a grimace on their face.

You are travelling in the bus and all of a sudden you feel like urinating. The urge seems to increase with every passing moment. Either you put one leg across the other and hold on tight or you start cavorting and twisting your body in unimaginable ways. Suddenly you feel that all eyes are transfixed on you and everybody’s watching you. You turn beetroot-red. You quickly get off on the next bus stop.

You go to the men’s room at your office. All toilets are occupied. You start walking up and down the corridor all the time praying that one of the toilets will be vacated soon. While you are at the opposite end of the corridor somebody else beats you to one of the vacated ones. You start cursing yourself.

You are walking on the road and all of a sudden it seems that your bladder is going to burst. You increase your pace. From fast to faster. Your strides become longer and longer. But there is not a single toilet to be found. What do you do. Luckily you come to a secluded spot and get on with it. Ahhhhhh.... what a relief!

The secluded spot might be a corner, an alley, a garbage dump or a tree. The time might be broad daylight, a dusky evening, or if you are extremely lucky — pitch-black darkness. The weather might be hot or cold or rainy or windy. Whatever the odds, you just do it then and there.

Over the years or rather the decades some places in Karachi have become popular for answering the call of nature. In the ‘60s and early ‘70s as you walked from Bambino towards Elphinstone Street (now Zaibunnissa Street) and the Saddar crossing, you could see males of various ages urinating.

Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s the island opposite Sabzi Mandi took hold as the No1 spot. Thank God, the Sabzi Mandi was shifted more than a year back as a result of which many, I am positive, must have heaved a sigh of relief.

Then there are the katchi abadi dwellers all across the rail tracks in Gulshan-i-Iqbal who can be seen at all odd hours of the day answering the call of nature.

And there are corners and secluded spots which too have become popular over the years.

The rear wall of the Sindh Muslim Law College has been popular ever since the ‘60s. When you are walking on the footpath there, you can see trails of liquid flowing there.

Then there’s the secluded corner just outside the D.J. Science College Sports Gymnasium. You wonder how word gets around that people know that this is a good spot for instant relief.

Most of the shopping centres in Karachi have no toilets for the people who shop there. The shopkeepers have a couple of toilets for their use which they keep under lock and key at all times. But what about the shoppers? Where will they go in case of an emergency? The shopping centres and some malls seem to have been constructed without any thought for this.

I too have found myself in trouble a couple of times when I am at the beach where there are no public toilets, be it Clifton, Sandspit, Hawkes Bay or Paradise Point. Once at Hawkes Bay, I was provided succour in a dilapidated beach hut whose toilet had been destroyed, and on another occasion in the garage of an abandoned hut. But I must confess I had to go on a hunting spree on both occasions.

Why doesn’t the government build public toilets at various places in the city as well as outside it? Several are needed badly in the vicinity of Empress Market, Saddar, and Tower.

The civic agencies must realize the gravity of the situation and start building public toilets at important locations in the city as well as at the beaches. And just building toilets will not be enough. Janitors too will be needed to be posted there.

And let us please have ‘desi’ style commodes. People tend to squat on the ‘western’ kind and leave their muddy footprints on the seats.