This is a joke my father once told me.
It seems Winston Churchill was visiting India and Jawahar Lal Nehru took him on an early morning walk around the Teen Murti Bhavan. Midway through the walk, Churchill pointed to a man squatting by the roadside and asked Nehru, “What is that man doing?”
“He is shitting,” Nehru replied.
“Are you serious? Is this the way you Indians shit every day?”
The Indian Prime Minister could not let down his country and said, “No…this is an one off case.”
Over a period of time, Churchill forgot the incident but Nehru couldn`t. It was a clear insult to India…and he wanted to avenge. When he visited England after a few years…he insisted on going for a walk with Churchill. Nehru knew that England was not yet a clean-toilet nation… and there were bound to be Englishmen shitting on grass.
Mid-way through their walk, they spotted a man squatting between the shrubs in Hyde Park. Excited at having found an Englishman shitting in the open…he alerted Churchill.
“What is that guy doing out there?”
“No idea Pandit Nehru. Let us see.” So saying, Churchill summoned his security guard and asked him to fetch that man. As the man neared …Nehru wondered if he had made the right decision by alerting Churchill. The man had Asian looks.
Churchill asked the man: “What were you doing between those shrubs?”
“My ship from India landed only today morning. Since, I couldn`t hold it any longer I had to squat between those shrubs. I am sorry…but this is how we would relieve ourselves in our motherland.”
Nehru never spoke a word to Churchill, during the whole tour.
Coming tomorrow: The Evolution of Toilets!