Minding My Pee - A Field Guide to Being Accommodated

Officer's lady toilet. Mahila shauchalay. Ladies’ urinal. Kept under lock and key, hidden behind curtains and doors, approached through dense thickets, or a tedious hike to the far end of the campus. And when none of these existed, the men's loo. Because pee and periods don't come with much notice.

 
As a 35 plus woman on field work in an armed forces campus, nobody prepared me to ask six people to find a toilet. That conditioning came in the last decade, along with a few other useful things navigating sweat, brasso and bureaucracy. 

The first time I drank too much water on a field visit, I discovered that relieving myself required a coordinating JCO, one officer, a buddy with a set of keys, and a two-block walk to a toilet kept under lock and key. The three-day training meant I had to do this elaborate dance each morning, afternoon and evening - go to the officer, wait for the buddy and the key, walk two blocks making small talk with him, unlock the door, pray there's water in the taps, ‘mind my pee’ and trace my steps back. 

On the days no facilities existed, I simply walked into the men's loo, locked the main door, did what I came to do and walked out, head held high. Some things don't require permission.

In a decade of field work across armed forces campuses, I’ve had the exalted opportunity to come face to face with many forms of toilet. Yes, I choose to use them and not die from thirst, dehydration and kidney failure. 

Each of these toilets is a distinct personality - the malodorous compiler announces itself long before you arrive in its vicinity. Weeks of accumulated deeds, generously shared with anyone in the fifty-meter radius.

The sleepy hollow has been left to its own devices for long enough that nature has moved back in. Moss on the walls, overgrowth at the door, a variety of inhabitants who got there before you and have no intention of leaving. 

The flooded philosopher holds court from under two inches of standing water, communicating exclusively in gurgles and grunts. Mournful, verbose, impossible to disregard, she has a lot to say and nowhere to go. 

The parched privy wears its thirst openly. Concrete the colour of drought, taps that recall water only in theory. Privacy, like water, is aspirational here. 

The red-tape radicals sit directly in the officer’s line of sight. Once you are past the fluttering nylon curtains and polished wooden doors, you can brush, bathe, powder, polish yourself and your shoes before you step out. I’ve been in a few and they even have hand towels, perfume, shaving kit and rarely, as an afterthought, sanitary pads too. The walk in and walk out however is a tactical operation requiring combat skills and studied nonchalance in equal measure.

The “Officer’s lady toilet” was an echo chamber tucked proudly in an auditorium, right next to the stage so everyone can keep an eye on the lone woman addressing the 100 odd soldiers. Open the door and it shrieks back at you like an irate brahminy kite. The flush however was the hidden throttle for a jet-propelled engine that confirmed to the people in the last row of seated soldiers my deed was done.

I once met a “ladies urinal” that made me question my anatomical instincts. Could I have stood all these years and saved myself from the many inconvenient UTIs and eventually earned gold standard quads from hovering over the toilet bowl? On scrutiny, it was half an Indian squat loo. I did some research after. Ladies’ urinals are a thing. Nobody told me that either. Perhaps the buddy was equally flummoxed. He hastily found a replacement board that read: “Ladies Officer Toilet”.