Yesterday, November 19, the world marked World Toilet Day. That the world needs a Toilet Day may be laughable to some, but it highlights the importance of hygiene and why much of the world still has no access to this most basic sanitation.

Let us narrow down the focus to Mumbai, and the importance of marking a day for toilets has even more resonance here. A city, which is bursting at the seams, simply has too few toilets in public places. Newspapers regularly carry reports about the unsanitary conditions of toilets on railway platforms, for instance.