It was while stepping over the channels of ochre fluid that run
between the raggedly cascading apartment blocks that make up the
Mumbai slum known as Cheeta Camp that James Potter discovered a
real-life version of what could be a scene out of a magical
realist novel by Salman Rushdie: a toilet facility that gets
built and then torn down again, always on the verge of being
finished, but never usable. “Five or six people circled around
to tell me the tale of the perpetually about-to-open toilet.
Apparently, for the last 15 years or so, the toilet had been
built, demolished and rebuilt three times,” said Mr. Potter, a
Hindi-speaking student who is pursuing his master’s degree in
public health at Harvard. Each time, local politicians claimed
that the lavatory facility would open “after the elections,” but
that never happened. Instead, the residents told Mr. Potter, the
government workers would just tear it down and start to build a
new one next time the elections rolled around. “The neighbors
didn’t have any expe