Let's start with a 2-line history tour - We are were a land of villages, towns, kingdoms and provinces. It's been 60* years since these have been replaced by cities on our maps, 20* since the IT revolution changed the economic standards in most of these cities (atleast for the middle and upper classes) and 5* since every fourth* man in the IT industry knows what life is like outside this country of ours.
Having said that, let's consider what we've managed to learn from our travels - Young politicians? Only over the last year. Equal importance to all forms of education (and not just engineering & medicine)? Yeah, a little maybe. Reduced inflation? Nope. More importance to the backbone of our country? (What's that you ask!?! - Agriculture you dummie!!) Nope. Reduced corruption levels on all fronts? No, No. And the most basic necessities of them all - Cleanliness? A DEFINITE No!
Hard to believe, if every fourth* man in the IT industry really does know what living outside this country is like, he most deifnitely knows their cleanliness standards! Why then, don't we follow any around here?! Will having an extra brown bag in our car for trash make us look stupid? Would keeping the wrappers of a toffee our children just ate, in our jacket pocket, ruin our prestige? Would politely asking a person to clean up after him, make us look like aliens? Would teaching our children to walk those ten extra steps to dump trash into a bin and follow the same, make us less dignified?
Yes, the govt. needs to put up more bins. Yes, they need to employ more workers to clean streets and roads. Yes, there has to be a more scheduled garbage pick-up system. Yes to all that! But how long can they keep increasing these strengths, how long can they keep cleaning up after you, how long can they keep adding to the already existing bins, if all of us just want to complain and only do our bit in adding to the mess around?
Every single day a new generation is born. Every single day this new generation learns from us. Every single day they follow what we imbibe in them. Is it not our mistake then, that we are not able to teach them even the basic idea of 'Community Cleanliness'? Isn't it our fault that we are teaching them ways to handle cleanliness around us with a stern "That's not my business" attitude?!
Agreed. All things don't change overnight. So let's start today by making our little bit count. Let's make our surroundings a cleaner, healthier place. And let's not forget the key word - OUR, not his or hers or theirs, but ours. Afterall, every drop in the ocean counts!
(*A guesstimate.)
(September 12th) Update: Front page news in ToI -
2 comments:
Let US do it. Let us do some Gandhigiri
Gandhigiri it is!! Let's do it!
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