Today was a monumental moment in Annie and my father-daughter relationship. It was the ultimate teaching moment of sorts: a trip to the international museum of toilets.
It's true. It exists. And it's amazing. I'd have to say, although it's far out in west Delhi, no trip to India should be complete without a visit to it. Even our taxi driver had been, which I thought was mind-blowing.
As most readers will probably not make it to the toilet museum I thought I'd share some select bits from their website, which says:
Museums as repositories for the preservation and exhibition of the objects of historical, scientific and cultural interest are found all over the world. But rare are the museums that display the evolution of toilets and their various designs (reallllly....you don't say).
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, the Founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, a pioneering non-profit voluntary organisation (NGO) in the field of Sanitation in India, envisioned the need for the setting up of a museum of toilets in the sprawling campus of his central office at Mahavir Enclave, Palam Dabri Road in New Delhi, India and has consultative status with Economic and Social Council of the U.N.The idea engaged his mind for long, eventually leading him to make hectic worldwide search for minutest details of the evolution of toilets, as also of various toilet designs used in different countries at different points of time.
The Museum has been established with the following objectives :-
To educate students about the historical trends in the development of toilets;
To provide information to researchers about the design, materials, and technologies adopted in the past and those in use in the contemporary world;
To help policy makers to understand the efforts made by predecessors in this field throughout the world;
To help the manufacturers of toilet equipment and accessories in improving their products by functioning as a technology storehouse; and
To help sanitation experts learn from the past and solve problems in the sanitation sector.
Join sanitation crusade.
The museum was inspired by Ghandi...
what would Gandhiji say?
The main exhibition room of the toilet museum
The museum was filled with a quite impressive timeline of the evolution of the toilet from it's origination in India (like everything else, didn't you know Indians invented it first) to modern day.
The museum was also filled with toilet humor.
And humorous toilets
It's true. It exists. And it's amazing. I'd have to say, although it's far out in west Delhi, no trip to India should be complete without a visit to it. Even our taxi driver had been, which I thought was mind-blowing.
As most readers will probably not make it to the toilet museum I thought I'd share some select bits from their website, which says:
Museums as repositories for the preservation and exhibition of the objects of historical, scientific and cultural interest are found all over the world. But rare are the museums that display the evolution of toilets and their various designs (reallllly....you don't say).
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, the Founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, a pioneering non-profit voluntary organisation (NGO) in the field of Sanitation in India, envisioned the need for the setting up of a museum of toilets in the sprawling campus of his central office at Mahavir Enclave, Palam Dabri Road in New Delhi, India and has consultative status with Economic and Social Council of the U.N.The idea engaged his mind for long, eventually leading him to make hectic worldwide search for minutest details of the evolution of toilets, as also of various toilet designs used in different countries at different points of time.
The Museum has been established with the following objectives :-
To educate students about the historical trends in the development of toilets;
To provide information to researchers about the design, materials, and technologies adopted in the past and those in use in the contemporary world;
To help policy makers to understand the efforts made by predecessors in this field throughout the world;
To help the manufacturers of toilet equipment and accessories in improving their products by functioning as a technology storehouse; and
To help sanitation experts learn from the past and solve problems in the sanitation sector.
Join sanitation crusade.
The museum was inspired by Ghandi...
what would Gandhiji say?
The museum was filled with a quite impressive timeline of the evolution of the toilet from it's origination in India (like everything else, didn't you know Indians invented it first) to modern day.
The museum was also filled with toilet humor.
And humorous toilets
What was one of the most funny things at the museum was the guide who showed up and started his spiel. He began at a normal even pace, but then Annie started waking up. As she started stirring the guide started picking up the pace of his monologue, and then she was awake and he really increased the tempo. And then she started fussing and let's just say he was talking like someone who really needed to go the bathroom NOW (my bathroom humor for this post). I just wish I could have charted the change in frequency of his voice over time....but that's just the scientist in me.
Sulabh is actually much more than just the museum pictured here. As an NGO it works to create economically and environmentally friendly sanitation options for rural villages (why they had nothing on Ladakh I'm somewhat mystified). In addition they had a bio-methane plant on site! Unfortunately, Annie had had enough of this lesson by that point and told me in no uncertain terms (a messy diaper filled with irony) that this field trip was over.
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