🚽 Of Ship Toilets and Bathroom Humor

Contrary to what it sounds like, a poop deck on a ship does NOT refer to toilets! It is, in fact, the highest deck at the rear/ aft/ stern of a ship. It comes from the French word for stern, ‘la poupe’, which in turn comes from the Latin root puppis. 

Q: So where is the toilet, please? 

A: Make an about turn and go to the opposite end of the ship!!

Ship toilets are also called ‘head.’ This goes back to the early days of sailing where wind power reined supreme. As the wind blew into the sail, the only spot on the boat that would always be downwind would be the head/ bow/ front of the ship. Naturally, no one would like the odors of the call of nature blow throughout the ship. Designating the head as the ‘do-your-big-job-here’ site, would ensure the smell, literally, blew away with the wind. Of course, nowadays, we are far more advanced in toilet placement. The name still endures. 

But, why are we talking about ship toilets anyway? Excellent question. My uncle, Biswajit Basu is a legendary story teller. But it is his penchant for bathroom humour that frequently leaves his audience in resigned, sometimes mortified, but always amused, hysterics. And when he weaves purple prose and poetic rose with it ... well, here’s a little sample of what you get. 

By Biswajit Basu: 

The sea is a beautiful place and everyday you get to see wondrous sights.  Sunsets and sunrises over the sea are usually spectacular except on stormy days.

We had arrived in Bombay Harbour and we were put in anchorage far out awaiting our turn to go in. This was in 1973 and I was the Second Engineer on a very old ship, the Jalavishnu, due for extensive drydocking and repairs. The ship was a very old one -perhaps 20 years old then. Unlike the later ships,which had totally enclosed air-conditioned accomodation, these old ships were not air-conditioned and each cabin opened to the open weather deck which ran along the cabins.

I was the Second Engineer then with a skeleton staff left in the ship as I had nowhere to go in Bombay and others had gone home or to restaurants etc. It was evening and I needed to go to the toilet for the big job and so I went in to the toilet directly from the deck.

On completion, I emerged on to the deck to be greeted by a magnificient sunset. Dark and purple clouds in a red sky silhouetting the ship's that were anchored around us. My heart leapt with joy at this wondrous sight. And I traced the red rays off the sea back to our ships hull and suddenly the whole thing changed from the calm feeling of the serene beauty around me to utter disgust.

There bobbing daintily on the Arabian Sea, in line with the sun's rays, was the consequence in my bodily extrusions of a few minutes ago. It had taken its time to go down the sewer lines and popped out in the ocean just as I looked down!

(Nowadays it is not permitted to dump untreated human waste  at sea)

And when his daughter responded that every hill station vacation trip was littered with guided commentary on the various places he had relieved himself, and open defecation should be banned there as well, this was his answer:

The hills are alive with the smell of fertiliser

With dung that have been dropped for a thousand years

The hills empty my belly with the sound of rumbles

The Himalayan peaks are drooping under the load it bears.

(With due apologies to The Sound of Music)

(Blogger postscript: Jokes aside, human waste management is serious! I came across a lot of interesting articles while writing this post. Just wanted to share this cute and informative graphic from the India Hikes site, on using cocopeat based dry toilets to save our mountains and water sources)