Moszhimo (Niloka Moses Zhimo)
Nagas are becoming experts in pulling out every dirty liquid from their deep lungs by making a loud noise, which sounds like a groan of a giant lion. One noon, as I was busy walking in the town, a man on his late twenties who was heading in front of me, turned and spat between my legs. .Ouch!....He didn’t care. He just headed and I was left there with a feeling of shock and giddiness (Did my legs look like a spittoon?)
No doubt, offices are cloloured with chewed betel and betel nut spitting. Believe it or not, there is a paan spitting on the wall, over the words “DON’T SPIT ON THE WALL”. You could hardly read out the words which are nearly buried with red- colour spitting. How interesting it is to have a look at the office rooms filled with spitting in every four corners. More interesting, it is, to see every officer with sexy red lips!
Spitting anywhere and everywhere has been a bane of Indian culture, more so in South India and now in Nagaland! Whatsoever the triggering factor, when our people step out of their house or out in the town, the salivary glands, it seems, start working vigorously and within no time you find the first blob of spittle strike the ground. If you are at any public place, it would be better if you wear blinkers and avoided looking at the ground.
From the lowliest cultivator or the porter to the rich businessman or high officer, nobody has any qualms about raucously clearing his throat on whatsoever in his glance. You can agree salivary secretion as it is natural and you can’t be swallowing it all the time. There are times when you get a strong urge to spit, as and when you see something nauseating or, maybe when you reach the climax of a wordy quarrel, but in all situation you could use a washbasin or a spittoon.
If you are on the road you could move on a discreet corner and spit into the sewer or use a public toilet (Did I say ‘public toilet’? Sorry, there isn’t enough). But spitting right in the middle of the road from a bus or in the cemented courtyard of a house or anywhere in public place is ‘irritating’, to say the least. I wonder if a person speeding on a vehicle care about pedestrians. The latter have to suffer the waste of the previous. Mercifully, many don’t get a blob of sputum over their outfit, but do often experience near them. Imagine the mood you have to undergo at the glance of those sticky streaks just as you step down from vehicle or as you get ready to fill your hungry stomach.
Generally, people here have accepted the spitting as a part of life and try to perfect the knack of spitting properly. They have honed it into fine art, so to say the art of using their palm as a shield, forming a small gap and elegantly squirting thin jet of betel-stained spittle without wetting their palms or fingers. Seated in the verandah, they aim the jet to a spittoon ten feet away, or they blob accurately around the spittoon (I mean ‘around the spittoon’!), which makes the spittoon look like a dirty ducks’ pond! I am sure if there were World Spitting Tournament, The Indian team would undoubtedly emerge winners, with the best players from Kerala and Nagaland.
To counter the town maintenance, some administrators hit upon the idea of providing dustbins and spittoons (Sorry, no spittoons. Only dustbins! Nagas do not spit, I guess….eh!). Whatever the reason for, there are few (few. I said ‘few’) waste bins lined up. Maybe an each bin for a ½ Kilometer, more or less, with the painted word ‘DUSTBIN’ and above that ‘SPIT HERE’. Strangely enough some people dislike the very idea of somebody telling them where to spit. So, reacting with a hurt ego they began messing up every place accept the ‘SPIT HERE’ bins.
In some office, I came across some office goers chewing betel and betel nuts (paan/ Tamul) and before we could finish discussing with them they would pull inside another and continue spitting inside a bin a couple of feet away. They would take out another cigarette, light up and make the room smoky. Chewing junks and smoking repeatedly, which force them to spit and spit and make their office room as red as bloody! Some of them feel a bit shy to chew and smoke outside their office where public crowd so they find their office room as the best place to do whatever. Not forgetting the pedestrians who close their eyes and spit anywhere around them. Today, why don’t you have a look around the town/ offices and count how much sputum and paan spittle you’d find? Better not, if you want your dinner to be fine.
Funny facts aside, how do we curb this menace? Do we actually have to follow the Singapore and Beijing examples? Oh, but just imagine, we have to shelve aside a huge chunk of annual budget to maintain an exclusive Anti-spitting department. Of course, some money may be spent for maintaining spittoons and department, but more money for the officers’ cars and residences and also for their vacation touring. We may allow them to have 80% of the allotted budget or they should miss the chance of getting the actual privilege of being an officer in Nagaland. Obviously, there will be a breed of corrupt officials who may take bribes to allow someone to spit on the road.
Will Anti-spitting education followed by spittoons all around and every corner of the town work? It may do work well. In our capital town we find many boards written “MAKE KOHIMA GREEN” with the betel mixed spittle over the words. So, instead of those boards why not provide some spittoons with some written words?.....Like: “ SPIT SPITTLES/SPUTUMS IN THIS SPITTOON”!
