Project Kathan

Skye, Kochi

Conversations through voice texts, November 26, 2024

There’s a college trip coming up and my primary concern is how am I going to pee?

I try not to go to toilet when I’m traveling. It’s a big deal for me. And I don’t like public toilets at all.

I think in childhood itself I have tried to not pee for like an entire day, like till evening or so. When I was in school in 5^th grade and all, we didn’t even have a washbasin on every floor, it was just, washbasin was downstairs, it was a big compound, it was at the end of that compound that there was a block of toilets. And initially, I’d go during the lunch break, I made sure to go to the toilet and everything, but then I started learning Karate at that time, and it would take up so much of my lunch break also and I wouldn’t get the time. And I started practicing to not pee. In school there were, okay toilets, fine, I guess. Then I stopped going to washrooms during the class time. Eventually, when I reached college, especially because I wear jeans, I completely stopped it. And during travel also I don’t. When I have to I try not to go to public toilets, maybe go to restaurants or something. Even when I’m talking about it, it makes me feel very icky. I think toilets and toilets being clean is a really really big deal for me. The last time I had a bad toilet experience was when a bus stopped somewhere in Chennai and I really had to go. I did not like it. When I was a child my parents used to make me pee in the bushes and all. But I don’t do that anymore.