Once on a trip to overseas, I noticed that all our Indian friends were extremely careful about disposing off coke cans, empty packets of chips and cookies etc. They would look for waste bins to put their garbage in or would keep it in their handbag till they got home.
The same set of friends on a long drive in India downed their car windowpane and tossed away coke cans, empty packets of chips and cookies. How can one do that and say ‘I love my India’?
I feel strongly that cleanliness is next to Godliness. If we develop the habit to keep our surroundings clean; if we make it a point not to litter, if we stop the usage of disposable bags, glasses, straws etc., we can surely make a difference. First of all we have to understand the importance of cleanliness and make a resolve to practice it. In India, especially in the summer and the monsoon that follows, filth breeds mosquitoes. This is turn brings the onset of malaria, dengue etc.
I remember once witnessing an incident at the light intersection of sectors 8-9-17-18. A middle aged man riding pillion on a scooter turned his face side wards and spat out phlegm. With the wind direction, the mucous landed with a splatter on the wind screen of the car right behind him. The gooey mess was right in the face of the guy at the driving wheel. What followed was no less than a spectacle of sorts.
The fellow sped off, for the light had just turned green. But the car driver behind, despite having given the indicator to turn right, drove straight and followed the phlegm-spitter at lightning speed. I watched from my car as the fellow over took the scooter rider aggressively; ordered him to stop; parked on the roadside; got out of the driving seat and gave the pillion rider 2-3 sharp whacks across his face. He dragged the bewildered man to his car and made him wipe the splatter clean! And gave him a good piece of his mind too!
Well! That was one extreme case. But the emotion behind it was something else!
I am pained when I see empty bottles of packaged water, polythene bags, disposable plates etc. lying strewn on the roads or in the markets or in parks. The civic sense to keep everything as we keep our homes is something we need to imbibe into our persona. After a public gathering the venue is most often than not strewn with disposable bottles, biscuit wrappers, fruit peels and even flyers and reading material. Chandigarh has a garbage collection system in place. But each of us has to help the system, by streamlining the waste generated in our homes.
We often travel by the Shatabdi Express. There is always an announcement towards the fag end of the journey that each passenger must take his/her water bottle along, but how many of us do it?
Interestingly, our younger generation is more aware of the cleanliness issue because the school teachers are talking to the kids about it. I feel some years hence, people will not litter on the streets, because they would be more understanding of the hazards. The sooner all of us take this up, the better it shall be for us!