Potty Talk

In an article on toilets, Farrokh Dhondy manages to drop names: "I had a profound and insightful discussion on this very subject with none other than VS Naipaul. He agreed that the introduction of the affordable, free enterprise toilet-facility, is one of the great advances in urban hygiene and the chief theatre of anti-stink pollution. This discussion came about in a strictly literary, unusual context... VS and I, over a glass or two of his fine Claret, agreed that far from being taboo, it remained an important subject. Now, when in Delhi he is always at the Maurya, but he empathised with my contention that these Shauchalays, despite the Vedic pretension of their name, were an advance."