Demolition of The Great Wall in India.

Walls, what does a wall do? They stand in between those which should not meet, things which needs to be differentiated or even just to claim territory. I always imagined in our context that what have walls got to do more and which wall has fallen without notice but created a big mental shift. I got my intermediate answer to this, the observation is simple but its implications are stark.

Few walls are physical like the compound walls, The Great Wall of China, Berlin Wall or any such wall or partition. There will be few walls which are in our minds like a Brahmin avoiding eating non-vegetarian or a Bong (the way I like to call Bengali’s) feeling offended to pay for a vegan bill, not to raise voice against elders etc. it was on 9^th November 1989, when the Berlin Wall was demolished and the interspaced barrier broke & intermingling between the two sides started.

One such wall which vanished at few places and the trend is ever increasing- this wall is the wall separating male urinals (ladies- you have to trust me on this as you may not have witnessed it yourself). Till almost 7 to 8 years back in India, male urinals had a separating wall between the two pots and a person had his entire privacy while relieving his intrinsic pressure through drain. However there was a change coming in which disrupted privacy but few bothered to protest, this was the Fall of The Great Wall in India.

This physical wall broke many mental ties as well (very few are for good!), in the last 7 to 8 years, urinating in public have reduced by some extent, in the same period the sales of condom have dropped by 38%, in the same time crime against women has increased, it’s the same time when Congress was ruling (non partitioned urinals is a western style apparently) and many more.

What is that we were separating through those walls? It was a mental barrier which these walls offered and I think it was for good. It offered some resistance to enter into others personal zone and I have a feel that its implication is bad than being any good (apart from saving on the cost of few granite separators).

I will not like to pass a verdict but would like to leave readers with more question than answers. The wall here is directive, there are many such walls which have fallen & are falling every other day, but are we observant or is it that we just going on accommodating it.