Today's Toronto Star carries an interesting story from Haryana, one of the poorer states of India.
They report that many families in rural India, when marrying off their daughters, are increasingly asking for not just a groom of the right caste, who does not drink and has good prospects for a stable job, but also an amenity in great demand: a toilet.
In rural India, the report goes on, many young women are refusing to marry unless the suitor furnishes their future home with a bathroom, freeing them from the inconvenience and embarrassment of using community toilets or squatting in fields.
Walt recommends this story not to make fun of India, but to highlight the huge differences in the cultures and economies of India and North America. About 665 million people in India – about half the population – lack access to even a communal latrine, let alone indoor plumbing. That's a fact of life in India, even in the biggest cities, and one can only imagine the consequences in terms of insanitation, a foul environment and widespread disease.
One also understands why millions of Indians and Pakistanis (literally) will do anything to get into Canada and the USA, by hook or by crook. Crooks abound in the immigration and refuee biz. It would be interesting to know how many of the visible South Asians one sees every day are here legally.
Now here's an amazing coincidence. CBC radio has a story this morning about the increasing numbers of Indians who are leaving Vancouver and Toronto to go back home!
According to the story, these are the better-off Indians who come here as economic migrants, only to find that they actually have to work, they won't have servants, and the streets are not paved with gold. So they stay here, heavily subsidized by taxpayers, long enough to get their green card or permanent resident status, and then they hightail it back to their land of milk and curry...and no toilets.
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