In reality street eat is not typical Indian background. Trace the same to the ancient and also not so ancient Indian austere food intake culture.

Sinful to serve in the same jhutah, glass without washing it after a drink, taste for saltiness with the cooking spoon, not wash mouth after each eat, talk while prepare food leading to invisible accidental spit on it, touch the person serving food while eating, on bed eat … are a few taboos.

Strict kitchen regulation and rigid habits, practiced throughout years now worn away with carelessness or compulsion of modernity (pseudo) egg on, malicious under cover diseases.

Apparently, street food may look deliciously attractive, surely not to public good health. Particularly when such structures clog pathways, it is like fungus or diphtheria infection that choke gullet.

There are other hundred valid reasons to ban arbitrary sellers of street food. Another example -- unclean cooking apparatus harbor bacteria and scarcities of water force repeated usage of the same dirty by food hawkers.

Encourage street food is encourage slow poison. Illiterate vendors under unhygienic conditions operate, hit, and run. That he has mostly flying customers it is hard to trace the stomach upsets …

These pain in the neck clutter streets, each bend and shade under tree plagued by unlicensed food makers, produce hourly stink and garbage that pose difficult situation for the municipality with a decadent infrastructure.

The ultra hygienic Indian victuals tradition is a situation of the past. Today, former kitchen and cooking taboos, forced to amnesia. The more intellectual we are the more we shun the tried and tested methods of our ancestors.

Never to get into the depth, it is easy to scorn old customs at the drop of a hat. More insight and courage is necessary on ban - addiction to street food.

However, applying the need to survival, innovative design concept is a must for the hawker trying to etch out a living with literally no help from administrative.

Surely, with space management plan, free zones in every postal area – in marketplace – food courts for the grub hawkers to carry on their activities as per traditional hygiene should help to breathe clean.

Spot cooking on demand only in permitted areas confirm safety for both the vendor and consumer. Eat, sleep, excrete, urinate, and bathe on the street may find attraction to those who thrive in indiscipline.

Some roar at Rich express of affection on podium as offensive; however forget own vulgar street-side display. Men women washing under public glare, sometimes even next to Shulabh facilities.

It is time to wake up to the rich heritage in real sense and not to the beck and call of seedy novo rich, some, from abroad who wish to lap up cheap gains as perhaps master of “who knows what?” nexus selling space belonging to others. Hafta extort agents are sure poor, cashing regal for the invisible or masked individuals, what a pity.

Slap dash attitude calls for a ban. Right to cleanliness is not mere beautification; it is never too late to begin an action of Herculean task that may ensure relief from hazardous health exposures.

This can only be realized and achieved as a joint venture, an undertaking by the public, seller, consumer, and administrative body with an eye to Health wealth and happiness -- GDP.

PS: Sulabh:- include a scavenge-free two-pit pour flush toilet (Sulabh Shauchalaya) safe and hygienic on-site human waste disposal technology, sanitation to the poor in India an original new concept of maintenance and construction of pay-&-use public toilets, known as Sulabh with bath, laundry and urinal facilities founded in 1970 by innovative Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak.     

May 26, 2007

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