Comments on: Complaining letter that got toilets installed on India's trains

By: Stranger Stranger

Stranger Stranger — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Cant stop laughing for a moment :)) damn there were his guts displayed in the letter, dont know what he dispayed in the station :))

By: petr

petr — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:23:00 +0000

is a hole on the floor of a moving train more disconcerting than a hole in the floor where the pigs come looking up at you in anticipation?

By: pthree

pthree — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 01:36:00 +0000

Who knew they had babelfish in 1909.

By: Fallandmisstheground

Fallandmisstheground — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 01:31:00 +0000

And by toilet, you mean a hole cut in the floor. A very “refreshing” but slightly disconcerting experience, relieving one’s self with the tracks rushing underneath.

By: Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:42:00 +0000

Wow, reads like a trouble ticket email I get from our helpdesk.
Seriously.

By: Stephen Bullock

Stephen Bullock — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:54:00 +0000

Remind me never to eat jackfruit…

By: bobchadwick

bobchadwick — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:28:00 +0000

The toilets on Indian trains still look like they were installed in 1909.

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:53:00 +0000

I am forgetting to be saying that I was being reading that letter in Chilly Beach’s Constable Al’s voice…
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/constable-als-vacation/16bi5b08w
Bonus, he is being wearing a dhoti in this episoding.

By: RadioSilence

RadioSilence — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:50:00 +0000

female woman in the opposite of mailman.

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:28:00 +0000

While I couldn’t recall what these were called, I suspected that either the lotah or the dhoti was one of these:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Lota_%28vessel%29#Cleansing

Now you can have a visual idea of what was going on…

By: AlexG55

AlexG55 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:40:00 +0000

I don’t know any Indian languages, but I can imagine a language where the word for “person” generally means “man”, and to say “woman” you would say “female person”.

By: Into_anus

Into_anus — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:36:00 +0000

A copy of the original typewritten letter can be found on the following link, there are a couple of differences in it too which I guess the “hand letterer” introduced:

http://indrasinha.com/men-of-letters-okil-chunder-sen/

By: claybob

claybob — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:05:00 +0000

Pretty amazing that India’s rail service sparked so many people into action. Gandhi, this guy, and I wonder how many more.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:01:00 +0000

female women? So I guess they had male women, too?

No, seriously, why “female women”? Is there a grammatical construct in any of the languages the gentlemen grew up with that would lead to such a translation?

By: Abdul Alhazred

Abdul Alhazred — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:50:00 +0000

By the context, I read “Lotah in one hand and Dhoti in the next” as something quite shocking indeed.
However, the dictionary says Lotah is a “globular water container” and Dhoti is “A loincloth worn by Hindu men in India”. Given the seriousness of the letter, it certainly makes more sense, although I personally prefer my initial reading for the comedy value. I was just waiting for spaghetti to fall out of his pocket too.

By: Florian Bösch

Florian Bösch — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:34:00 +0000

And that is how you get shit done in India.

But wait a second, so a guy has to go to the toilet, and since he didn’t factor that into his departure calculations, the conductor whistles the train to go without him.

Then he threatens to make it public (that the conductor made the train leave on time) and hopes the conductor will get a big fine…

Makes perfect sense to install toilets after that. The solution to trains leaving on time is to install a toilet. Ever since trains in India are late because they have a toilet.

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:11:00 +0000

All your shocking are belong to us.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

By: gwailo_joe

gwailo_joe — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:09:00 +0000

This is all kinds historical wonderful: for myself, when running with Lotah and occasional Dhoti I am always endeavor to not be exposing all my shocking…

It is my sincere hoping that these are the persons to get the proper filicetious recommendations in future livings…

Edit: never run with a lotah. Period.

‘occasional’ dhoti wearing could get one arrested however; but perhaps not in SF…

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:58:00 +0000

How was that letter produced? That font can’t possibly be someone’s actual handwriting…

It says that the original is in the archive, so that’s probably a hand-lettered poster for display. Painstakingly hand-lettering a complaint to a civil servant, however, would not seem out of place in India, particularly in 1909.

By: Nathan Barry

Nathan Barry — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:55:00 +0000

If someone does make it into a font, please call it “Indlish”!

By: Nathan Barry

Nathan Barry — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:51:00 +0000

What a fantastic typeface too, someone please make it into a webfont!

By: Steven Vanderveer

Steven Vanderveer — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:51:00 +0000

How was that letter produced? That font can’t possibly be someone’s actual handwriting…

By: Ted Mills

Ted Mills — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:14:00 +0000

“All My Shocking” will soon be somebody’s Tumblr site. In 1…2…3…

By: Mark Dow

Mark Dow — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:13:00 +0000

I’m hoping Next Media Animation will do a CGI re-enactment in sepia tones, with a bit of steampunk and Bollywood flair.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:05:00 +0000

What beautiful Indlish!

: D

By: BijouxBoy

BijouxBoy — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 06:52:00 +0000

Lord that was funny. What a day. From bad to worse. Too much jackfruit.