New Delhi, Mar 25 (UNI) Keeping one’s house clean is the first step towards attaining the dream of “Swachh Bharat”, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has said. In a video shared on twitter, Akshay said,’’ Friends, ‘Swachh Bharat’ is only possible when ‘ghar’ is swachh and ladies of our family are healthy.” In the video, titled ‘Soch Aur Shauch”, Akshay said that during the research work for his forthcoming film “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”, he came across a report opened his eyes towards the plight of women who have to go to open fields to relieve themselves. ‘’Imagine in a super power country like India, more than half of the population especially women can’t go to toilet when they feel the urge because they don’t have toilet in their home. They have to go to open fields because they are family’s respect. They have to go before sunrise, and in case they miss that time they have to wait for the sun to go down to relieve themselves. Men do not have to go through the same struggle to attend to nature’s call,’’he said. “Is this is our culture? When you can have kitchen and bedroom under one roof, then why not a toilet? All of this is the result of the direction we think in. Fifty four per cent of the people in our country do not have toilets in their homes and India tops the list globally for unhygienic sanitation practices. The government has built public toilets but these buildings are being used as animal sheds and what not,” Akshay said. The actor said that though initially he wondered if he should talk about this, as many would point out that he was doing this video only for the publicity of his film, he decided to go ahead. ‘’ And, you are right. I am doing this film ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha‘, and I do want as much publicity as possible for this particular topic.Why should I care about what others think? I feel that thoughts and faces are both similar. There is no way that you could stop either. It is nature’s call, that you have to answer,”he said. UNI AR SHK 1951