SURAT, May 17: Two foreign tourists were overheard while travelling in a railway compartment recently. The first, ``How did you find the country?'' The second, ``The country is exotic and beautiful, but it seems as if a majority of the people are chronic TB patients.''This may seem a bit exaggerated, but it reflects a serious problem, which seems to be growing by the day. Paan stains. The pichkaaris of paan, gutkha, paan masalas and the like are found just about everywhere. Bright red patches adorn the walls of buildings, roads, staircases, loos, electric and telephone poles (which by default are meant for stray dogs) and almost every place inhabited by humans. This might clear the mystery of the tourist woman, who perhaps though that people here vomited blood en masse.
People spitting after chewing paans do not seem to be bothered about where the stain lands? A person, sitting near a bus window, spurts out the red liquid right onto the street not concerned whether a passerby's clothes or his head will get stained. Trains are no different. And the crowds make it worse.
A person, sitting on a window seat, will spit out no matter whosoevers sparkling white clothes get stained. That the stain will stay despite using the best detergents is another story altogether. Those who spit carelessly while walking on the street form another species of these paan-chewing population. Such instances are a common sight near government buildings or roads of the city.
And to keep the premises of government offices clean, architects of the secretariat building in Gandhinagar came up with a novel idea. Considering that Indians are religious by nature and wouldn't tolerate any disrespect to their gods, they installed tiles bearing pictures of Lord Ganesha at every corner. Unfortunately, today none of the tiles are visible. All have been covered with paan stains.
However, on top of all these instances is getting into a conversation with someone who has his mouth stuffed with a mega-sized paan and can barely open it. Even worse is that the person is too eager to get into a conversation. What would happen if accidentally the paan liquid blows out damaging the other person's face and clothes. And mind you, the person will not even apologise. So much for manners.
While there are a select few, who find, both the smell and the taste of the red liquid pleasing, rather they form the majority, those who find it appalling have just nowhere to run to. The paan pichkaari or the gutka squirt is omnipresent and so are its creators. And those who are against this practise, have no option and can't even seek help of the police for even they form part of the paan-chewing population.
Traffic policemen are seen as the worst offenders as standing at an elevated platform, they spit with authority. And dare you take pangas with them.With surveys on everything under the sun being conducted nowadays, there would hardly be any harm in conducting one more to find out the following aspects; Which country has the largest number of pichkaari-wallahs? In which country are most buildings worst coated by paan squirts? What percentage of brawls on the streets are caused because someone has squirted red liquid on another? We might be in for yet another `first'.
