Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
(Applause)
Is this on?
Ok. Well, yes. It is.
So, my name is Anoop Jain
and I am here tonight to talk to you all about
the very normal human condition and experience
we all know as pooping.
And so, the reason I want to talk to you all about this
is because, three years ago, I was in a village, in rural India,
and I was working there
and I happened to witness about, you know,
close to a thousand villagers defecating outside.
And this was something that was extremely troubling.
And, so I started to do my own research
and I quickly found that there is about 2.5 billion people in the world
who are forced to defecate outside on a daily basis.
And 650 million of these people live in India alone.
And so, it’s, you know, seeing the people defecating outside
coupled with these statistics,
which really drove me to start my own organization
that builds community toilet blocks
and harnesses the human waste to create energy.
But I’m not really here to talk to you about that tonight.
What I think is going to be a lot more valuable, in fact,
is if I try to instill a similar sense of urgency in you all.
And, in order to do that, I first need to make you care.
So I want to start with a quick survey.
How many of you all do not poop?
(Laughter)
Ok, great, ok.
So, then, the data confirms my hypothesis
that everyone, in fact, poops. Great.
So, I want you to remember that,
‘cause that’s going to be really important later.
So, let’s talk about something else really quickly.
So, I have this theory that
there are two kinds of people in this world.
There’s the haves and the have-nots.
And the reason problems in this world exist
is because the haves don’t necessarily understand the have-nots.
And so, what eventually happens,
is that, when the haves try to help the have-nots,
they’re rendered useless,
due to their lack of understanding,
when trying to effect any kind of substantive change.
And this is what then ultimately lets the problems persist.
So, what does this mean in the context of pooping?
Well, you all just admitted that you all poop, which is great.
So, you and seven other billion people poop.
But there is one key difference,
and that is everyone in this room has a place to poop.
And, like I said earlier,
there’s 2.5 billion people who don’t.
So, that is the difference. You are in the haves
and those people are in the have-nots.
So, I think all of us have had situations
or experiences in our life,
where we really needed to go, and there was no toilet.
And those are really embarrassing moments,
they’re really tough moments,
and we try to repress them and forget about them,
'cause they are just that awful.
But, so… and that’s fine.
But I think that here is the problem – is that,
what if you were faced with that situation every single day?
What would you do?
Well, and it would impact you differently, depending on who you are.
So, if you’re a woman, for example,
you’re going to try to go either early in the morning
or late in the evening,
when the sun is low, to protect your privacy.
Well, unfortunately, that leaves you vulnerable
for either sexual assault or rape.
If you are a young girl – well, only one in six schools
in rural India actually has a toilet.
So, if you’re a girl that goes to one of those
other five schools, and you reach puberty,
where are going to change your pads?
So, 40% of all the girls in India that drop out of school,
the reason they drop out is because their school has no toilet.
So, India is essentially depriving itself
of its future generation of female leaders.
And if you're a man – well, men in India are traditionally the bread winners.
And, so, about ten billion dollars
are lost every single year in India,
because of lack of productivity,
due to the time spent searching for a place to defecate.
So that’s going to be about an hour every single day.
That’s ten billion dollars.
So, going beyond that, if you look at the whole family,
well, if you have 650 million people defecating outside,
you have a hundred thousand tons
of untreated human waste
left outside every single day.
Just try to imagine how unhygienic that is
and what that does to the health of the society.
So, everyone is going to be getting sick, all the time.
So, clearly,
defecation outside is impacting everyone in a lot of different ways.
Two of my very best friends, Suzanna and Chandler, they're here tonight.
And they have a dog.
Her name is Annie.
And I love going on walks with Suzanna and Chandler and Annie,
and I think they already know where I’m going with this.
But, Annie is great,
and I love watching her poop, which might sound weird.
But it is actually quite glorious.
So, here is… I want to recreate it for you.
So, she’ll squat down,
and then, as soon as she’s done pooping,
she literally just sprints, as fast as she can in the other direction.
And I really honestly think this is symbolic
of our human relationship with waste.
I mean, I don’t think we'd literally actually sprint out of the toilet every time we shit.
But I think what happens is that I honestly think
that we have this great aversion to our own waste.
And we hate talking about it.
And, to be perfectly honest with you,
that’s completely unfair,
because there’s 40% of the world
that has to deal with this on a daily basis.
And they can’t flush it out of sight or out of mind.
And, so I want to leave you with one thought,
and that is, the next time you’re sitting on your toilet,
I want you to remember that what you have
is, in fact, a privilege,
when it really ought to be a right.
Thank you.
(Appaluse)