The Best Kept Public Lavatory in the whole of Anuradhapura

Last week I made a pilgrimage to Anuradhapura, ancient capital of Sri Lanka for 1500 years and a sacred city to Buddhists all over the world. If you stepped in to the Archaeological Museum of Anuradhapura, you could see a number of intricately carved urinals and various designs of baths and toilets. As this article too is on the same subject, reader may forgive me for highlighting ancient toilet designs out of all the marvellous achievements of ancient Sinhalese.

It was while at the Isurumuniya Vihara, the beautiful cave temple close to the ancient city that I was struck by a sudden and imperative call of nature. In fairness, it has to be said that an adequate number of public lavatories (toilets, as some say) are maintained at various sites of the ancient city though some of them may not be up to the mark in terms of cleanliness and availability of such facilities as a ready supply of water and functioning faucets (taps). Most of the places charge a nominal fee of Rs 10.00 (US Dollar 9 Cents) which is quite fair for the service provided.

At the far corner of the Isurumuniya car park, I was literally amazed by the spick and span condition of the public lavatory there. Invariably the credit should go to the caretaker of the place, Mr Jinadasa who has been maintaining it for years and thanks to his efforts we can talk about, and of course take comfort in, such a marvellous public amenity.

The place is kept neat and clean, floors are all tiled, and inside each cubicle, the actual place of business features a typical Sri Lankan “squatting pan”. These are different from regular commodes or toilets westerners are accustomed to, and now found all over the world. May be the idea is to keep the place as clean as possible because keeping a squatting pan clean is much easier than a regular commode. The only drawback, if it can be called as such, is that some people, especially the elderly, might find the squatting pan a little troublesome to use. But there had been no complaints, but only grateful comments.

Without fear I can say this is the best kept public lavatory in the whole of Anuradhapura, and must thank profusely Mr Jinadasa for his yeoman service. Out of the fee of Rs 10/=, a negligible amount even in Sri Lanka, he keeps the place squeaky clean so that anybody, be they locals or foreigners, can use the facility without any hesitation.

My only regret is that due to the urgency of my visit, I was not in a position to take a photograph or two of the place. I’ll most definitely correct this lapse when I visit Anuradhapura next.